British Prime Minister Tony Blair long ago lost the youthful optimism of his first runaway election victory, yet survival of a rollercoaster week shows he still knows how to ride his luck.
"He's an extraordinarily fortunate prime minister. Maybe it's because he prays a lot!" said analyst Anthony Seldon after Blair's knife-edge victory in a key parliamentary vote and exoneration by a judge probing the suicide of an Iraq expert.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Blair has confounded doom-mongers who predicted the twin threats converging this week, in a crazy 24 hours of high political drama, could have toppled him.
But he will need plenty more political luck -- or divine help -- to face a future fraught with problems as his ruling Labour Party rebels against his social reform policies and Britons stay dubious over his reasons for the Iraq war.
He also has the brooding presence of his powerful finance minister and rumored rival Gordon Brown to contend with.
Brown helped Blair scrape through Tuesday evening's education vote by just five "ayes," but some think that just cleverly enhanced his credentials to take over from the boss.
The embarrassing reduction of Blair's 161-seat parliamentary majority, in the most serious revolt he has faced to a core domestic policy, has thrown into doubt his entire social reform policy, which Labour traditionalists see as too free-market.
Further readings of the education bill, plus upcoming legislation on asylum and parliamentary reform, are now in doubt as Blair will be forced to consult rebels more closely.
On the Iraq issues bedeviling him for more than a year, a judge cleared Blair on Wednesday of blame for the suicide of weapons expert David Kelly in a report that could have sunk him had the prime minister been personally censured.
But the wider issue of Britons' distrust with Blair's case for war, and particularly his allegations over Saddam Hussein's banned weapons, remains an open political sore.
With none of the banned weapons Blair claimed Saddam had primed for use yet found, many in his war-wary party will never forgive him for convincing them military action was necessary.
"The prime minister led us into a complete disaster. He is either a fool or a knave, either incompetent or a liar -- and who is being hanged today? The BBC and Andrew Gilligan," anti-war legislator George Galloway said.
While judge Lord Hutton cleared Blair, he strongly rapped the BBC and its reporter Gilligan for their role in the Kelly affair.
Blair, looking feisty and relieved in parliament, said Hutton's report vindicated him and proved accusations that he had misled the nation and parliament were "the real lie."
But his principal accuser, opposition Conservative leader Michael Howard, said the saga over Kelly's suicide -- apparently unable to cope with the pressure and depressed by the outing of his name -- reflected badly on Blair.
"The nation will in due course deliver its verdict," he said, referring to the next general election expected next year.
Most analysts expect Blair to win that, but not with the same unassailable lead as in the past. And the jury is out on whether this week's survival act will ultimately strengthen Blair or make him, in his foes' words, a "dead man walking."
"Blood has been let and anger has been satisfied," Seldon said. "It could be the opportunity for a big new reorientation and relaunching of the second term. Or it could turn out to be the turning point in the second term where the party has shown that they're simply not going to buy his agenda."
Ever since the shock 1994 death of former leader John Smith opened the way for Blair to lead the Labour Party, circumstance, charisma and fortune have played a part in his success.
After his 1997 election victory, he earned the nickname "Teflon Tony" because no dirt stuck. But what gloss was left disappeared with the Iraq war.
"The Hutton inquiry did not go to the heart of the matter of whether the government got it right or not on WMD," said politics professor John Curtice.
"The debate about the Iraq war is still going to be with him. The argument inside the Labour Party about the reform of public services is still going to be with him, the rebellious nature of his MPs is still going to be with him."
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
RSS