It was said of William Gladstone, the British Liberal prime minister, by his opponents, that he was fearful on the rebound. Throughout his long political life he followed periods of weakness and failure with periods of intense activity, oratorical brilliance and political success.
Prime Minister Tony Blair is demonstrating a similar rebound from a poor general election performance, to a new plateau of authority and respect, not only in Britain but throughout the European Union and, indeed, the world.
I write as one who believes Tony Blair should have resigned after misleading the House of Commons before the illegal and ill-judged invasion of Iraq. Napoleon demanded that his Marshals should be lucky. Tony Blair has been. The Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr. Kelly, the senior weapons inspector, had the capacity to blow Tony Blair out of the water but failed to do so.
Tony Blair’s Labour Party won last May’s general election but only achieved 36 percent of the total vote — an astonishingly low figure for the party now in government. Many Labour parliamentary candidates regarded the prime minister as a liability and tried to ignore him during the campaign, and the New Labour approach which he embodies.
After the general election, the prime minister, who had previously stated he would step down during the life of this Parliament, appeared to have entered a twilight zone. Some ungrateful Labour MPs were calling for him to go as soon as possible. One Cabinet minister warned the rebels they were in danger of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Tony Blair would be remembered only for taking Britain into the Iraqi war and unfinished and expensive reform of the run down public services. The political landscape has been changed beyond all recognition.
The leader of the Conservative Party, Michael Howard, sensibly announced he would not be taking his party into the next general election. But the Conservatives at once flung themselves into disarray and there will be no effective opposition in the House of Commons before the New Year.
Europe gave Tony Blair his next boost. Without properly consulting his Cabinet he had pledged to hold a referendum on the draft European Union constitution. It looked almost impossible for such a referendum to come out in support of the constitution which the government was backing. But then both France and the Netherlands voted “No” to the constitution, and although much of the European Union was in denial, it was blindingly obvious that the constitution could not proceed in its present form. A lost referendum in Britain could easily have led to the prime minister’s early departure.
A few weeks after, at the EU summit, Tony Blair took a popular stand at home by defending Britain’s annual rebate in the budget row.
More importantly, when the United Kingdom assumed the presidency of the EU on July 1 he went on the attack and deeply impressed a European Parliament that might have been hostile.
Tony Blair put the unanswerable case for reforming the Common Agricultural Policy, which is absurdly expensive and damaging to developing countries. He pointed out that some of the money saved should be spent on improving Europe’s technological edge, to help reduce Europe’s high unemployment and to check strong trading pressure from China and India.
He may not win game, set and match before the end of the British presidency, but he is now playing a dynamic role in saving the EU from its old and failed ways. The fact that President Jacques Chirac of France attempted to challenge him, and then made one blunder after another, provided a wonderful contrast in Tony Blair’s favor.
Next came the unexpected news that London had beaten Paris by only four votes to win the prize of hosting the 2012 Olympic Games, after trailing behind that city for months. Tony Blair had taken the risk of spending two busy days in Singapore, just before the G-8 summit at Gleneagles in Scotland, meeting up to 60 influential people, face to face for up to 15 minutes each. He told them that London represented multicultural harmony.
His personal triumph was reinforced by the manner in which he took control of the G-8 summit. Limited progress on global warming was all that was possible, but real progress was made over Africa.
Even the tragic bombing of London, on July 7, from which the United Kingdom is still reeling, showed Tony Blair in a remarkable light. In front of the leaders of the G-8 and five other nations, he found just the right, moving and dignified words before flying down to London.
In the House of Commons on July 11 Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, paid a fulsome tribute to him for “the calm, resolute and statesmanlike way in which the government responded to the attack last Thursday on our capital city...”.
