LONDON, 22 April 2005 — The worst fears of the British Conservative Party are close to being realized. Britain seems to be sleepwalking toward a third Labour landslide. Oh, I know, it doesn’t help Labour to say so — we must all mumble about how the pollsters are probably wrong, and every vote must be fought for. But columnists have freedoms that politicians don’t; including the freedom to state the obvious.

Which is this: Short of Tony Blair going on live television and telling the nation that he intends to bring in compulsory euthanasia for the widows of war veterans to make more space for Algerian asylum seekers, Labour cannot be beaten. Unless every pollster, pundit, campaigning doorstep politician I’ve spoken to; every shrewd spread-better, every political reporter and every contemporary historian is utterly wrong, then the Tories don’t have enough gas in the tank to come anywhere near winning.This has only become finally clear in the past week. Until then, we had had a fast-moving, ambush-heavy, policy-light campaign from the Tories ahead of the formal election announcement. The polls had been all over the place, giving out no clear message, and so leaving us thinking that perhaps the country was genuinely ready to revolt against Blair.

All of that seems out of date now. We are almost halfway through the real campaign and the Conservatives have given it everything they can think of. They’ve fired two of their three tax-cut bombshells. They’ve promised bustling matrons, pupil passports and a crackdown on seamy foreigner types. They’ve called Blair a serial liar, and got hot under every well-pressed collar they possess. Result? Nothing. In polling terms, the toneless bleep-bleep-bleep which in any hospital TV drama means “dead”.

The media have noticed. Everyone is going around saying the election is boring. If you are interested in policy, it isn’t, of course: There have been real and important arguments about the future of the NHS, the best way to fund local government and much else. But what the media mean by “boring” is that they think they know the result ... and they’re right. But if the election result is becoming obvious, this does not necessarily mean that the next few years will be boring. The view seems to be that if Blair is confirmed as prime minister with a majority in three figures, then we return to life as normal. But this underestimates the huge injection of new authority that

The debate so far about the likely consequences of a third Labour victory has been crudely divided between those who expect a modest victory followed by a swift putsch by Blair’s main rival for the top job, Gordon Brown, the current UK finance minister; and those who think a large victory will allow Blair to keep Brown waiting, while he promotes old chums like Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers. But is it not possible that Blair, who has never lacked ambition, might have a more interesting plan?

He wants, as he reminded us during the launch of the manifesto, to secure the New Labour legacy. What he did not say is that in the immediate aftermath of a third victory he will possess a unique amount of power and freedom, because he is the first prime minister to go to the country promising never to come knocking again.

He will have a personal mandate. That might seem odd; after all, millions of voters will put their crosses against Labour despite feeling let down or angry about Blair. The polls all suggest that Brown’s decision to throw himself into the campaign has had an immediate effect. Indeed, if he was the Labour leader now, the party’s poll rating would be stratospheric.

But the personal mandate doesn’t come from the voters or the Labour party but from the Tories. They have run a relentlessly vicious personal campaign against Blair, harping on about his grin, his untrustworthiness, his alleged propensity to gloat, and making him so much the personal emblem of New Labour. If, after all that, he is returned to power with a strong majority, no one can say he was never the issue.

So, on the one side the freedom of never standing again, and on the other the authority of a personal mandate against the odds. The next question is: What would he do with this? He could try to introduce more “choice” in the public services, but that risks more rebellions and splits in the Labour party. Rather than trying spitefully to wreck life for Brown when he takes over, the clever “hand of history” thing would be for Blair to expend his capital and give his successor a golden legacy.

During the campaign Labour has hidden behind two studies: A report on the council (local) tax and another on pensions, without giving any commitments about what it will do. So Blair could finally grapple with the pensions crisis. That might mean legislating for compulsion, or means testing; but the report on pensions won’t be bringing soft options. He could bring in a privacy law, as some ministers have been pushing for. It would be a final reckoning with the media who have tormented politicians for so long. He could bring in road pricing; make the tough decisions to reduce carbon emissions; and announce a royal commission on PR for the UK Parliament, and then try to enact it.

These are undoubtedly all “live” issues among senior members of the government. If what seems to be happening in this election campaign really is happening then Blair is about to be empowered, for a limited period, as never before. Reporters have noticed he has a nice tan. What was he planning as he lay in the sun?