Reeling from one crisis to the next, unable to control his ministers, Tony Blair faces even more trouble as the loans-for-peerages investigation closes in. By Martin Bright, NS political editor
By the time you read these words, Tony Blair will be gone. His ageing and exhausted form may still occupy Downing Street, but the reality, recognised by allies and foes alike, is that he no longer has authority over his government or party.
Even his closest allies can see he is finished. They tell their colleagues that the experience of canvassing in the local elections has led them to conclude that the Blairite revolution can no longer be completed by Blair himself. The same group of loyalists who urged the Prime Minister to stay in the summer of 2004 must now decide who among them will tell him what everyone else already knows: that the revival of the government is impossible with him at the helm. "Blair is dead," they say. "Long live Blairism."
The only question that remains is who will deliver the farewell message. "With Prescott gone, there is only a handful capable of breaking the news," says a senior loyalist MP. The same long-standing ally, returning from the campaign trail, said it was the worst time he could remember on the doorstep since the 1980s: "This has gone well beyond 'difficult but manageable' - this is potentially a meltdown. We don't have a narrative to explain the big picture of what we are trying to do. People can't go back to the constituencies and wave the Labour flag."
One serving cabinet minister told me that Downing Street was "refusing to face up to the crisis" created by the triple whammy of Charles Clarke's foreign-prisoner releases, Patricia Hewitt's mauling over health-service cuts, and John Prescott's extramarital dalliances. "There is a sense of denial in cabinet meetings," said the source. Senior party figures viewed the Prime Minister's interview with the BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, during which he tried to play down the implications of Labour's Black Wednesday, with disbelief.
"What's most dangerous is that it plays to the anti-political mood around at the moment," says one. "It's a very dangerous situation, just when you need vision and values. I'm just being realistic. And it's all self-inflicted."
It is hard to believe that ministers, after eight years of experience, can have made such basic errors in the administration of their offices. The embarrassments could have been avoided by using a simple, three-point guide: don't let civil servants tell you anything about the criminal justice system without checking it yourself; don't tell people about to lose their jobs that they have never had it so good; and don't sleep with the staff.
Now, whenever two Labour people meet, from local party activists through to the cabinet, the conversation turns immediately to the handover of power. The local elections were always going to be the first real test of the third Labour administration, but no one expected them to be engulfed in a full-blown crisis. Just as the extreme right was beginning to be identified as a genuine threat, the Home Secretary was forced to admit that 1,023 foreign nationals imprisoned for serious crimes had been released without being considered for deportation. One former minister remarked: "The Clarke thing really hurt. There's something about the issue, combining foreigners, criminal behaviour and incompetence: it just beggars belief."
The timing was unforgivable, in Blair's eyes, and Clarke can- not survive a reshuffle. Friends of the Prime Minister say that, contrary to the front that he presents in public, he is livid. Clarke's future became even bleaker when it was revealed that a Somali suspected of the killing of PC Sharon Beshenivsky had been considered for deportation, but allowed to stay in the UK.
Clarke initially survived only because of the timing, so close to the local elections. But Blair's fury is not entirely due to the failures that led the Home Office to lose track of more than a thousand foreign serious offenders. It is primarily because it took so long for his home secretary to tell Downing Street of the impen-ding crisis. Was this merely a dereliction of duty on Clarke's part, or further proof of Blair's haemorrhaging authority?
To lose Clarke would be a huge blow to Blair. The Norwich South MP was never a close confidant of the Prime Minister, but he was one of the few figures with the courage to tell him some hard truths. Clarke had usually been the binman of the Labour government, clearing up other people's mess. At the Department for Education and Skills he did a good job of mopping up a series of disasters that Estelle Morris had inherited from David Blunkett. Thanks to him, a chaotic exam system and bungled tuition-fee reforms were largely sorted out. At the Home Office the problems were more deeply rooted and it proved impossible to turn them around. While he was dealing with an illegal system of detention with- out trial left by his predecessor, another batch of potentially dangerous prisoners was being let out on to the streets. Clarke's tragedy may be that he was getting close to identifying a problem untouched by Blunkett and Jack Straw.
There was a time when Blair would have taken advantage of the miscellany of miseries afflicting his ministers. He would have drawn strength from the downfall of two big beasts who could have done him serious harm. He would have knocked heads, and been seen to be doing so. He would have risen presidentially above the fray, his authority culminating in a reshuffle. Now he will reorganise the deckchairs, but in so doing will not breathe life into the government. It is hard to imagine the public's enthusiasm being stoked by the promotion of risk-averse technocrats such as John Hutton and Alan Johnson.
Meanwhile, Gordon Brown and his lieutenants have kept their counsel. They know this is not the optimum time to take over, but they also know that two years of further scandals will be deeply corrosive to the brand. Oddly, it suits the Chancellor, for the time being, to have a mortally weakened Blair in Downing Street. Brown's dilemma remains that he will not want to take over while the party is in free fall, but the longer he waits, the harder it will become to revive party fortunes.
So deep is the malaise that, for once, a consensus of sorts is being reached by MPs, irrespective of whether their allegiance has been to the Prime Minister or Chancellor. Those who do not necessarily want a Brown succession have calculated as follows: the "Brown bounce" is worth perhaps three or four points when he eventually takes over. This would take a relatively stable Labour government into power for a fourth time. But equally, they argue that Brown would not provide the solution if, as some fear, the Conservatives open up a gap of, say, seven or eight points over Labour by next summer. If that is the case, then both men may be seen as a liability.
Ministers now know what most Labour Party activists have been telling them since last May's election: that despite that victory, Blair is an electoral liability. The triple crisis might have been easily overcome, had it not happened so soon after a potentially far more toxic political scandal. Although the loans-for-peerages débâcle did not play very strongly on the local election campaign trail in comparison to the releases of foreign prisoners, it could become more directly damaging as the police investigation gathers pace.
The inquiry has already led to one arrest, which was dismissed in characteristic fashion when it was announced. Nevertheless, those around Blair are becoming deeply worried. One minister said there was a growing sense of irritation within the government that the police had launched an investigation into something that was perhaps improper, but almost certainly not illegal. Giving peerages to party donors is a well-established practice in British politics, he said. However, he too recognised the potency of the case: "Some of it is very politically damaging if it spins out of control with people testifying against each other, and if the investigation reaches Downing Street."
Scotland Yard has widened its net, announcing that it has questioned several more people under caution. Worse is to come. The New Statesman has learned that the police inquiry has already thrown up some surprising names that are beginning to cause great alarm in government circles. If, as some believe, the trail is beginning to creep ever closer to No 10, Tony Blair really is a dead man walking.
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