Tony Blair’s Final Countdown
The final few days of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s time in office are well and truly underway. Damaged by the hugely unpopular Iraq War, and having already committed to resigning before September this year, he has now said he will announce his plans within the next week – beginning a process that will lead to the election of a new leader for the governing Labour Party and, therefore, Prime Minister for the remainder of the term won by Labour in 2005.
Blair will be leaving against a difficult electoral backdrop for his party. This week’s elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, and local authorities across England were never going to be a success story for a Labour government that trails the opposition Conservatives in opinion polls. And though results have not been as bad as some in government had feared, the Conservatives have succeeded in taking seats in England from both Labour and the third-biggest party, the Liberal Democrats. An even more difficult long term result for the government may come from elections to the Scottish Parliament, where the success of the Scottish Nationalist Party in becoming the single largest party reinforces a growing headache for the government over whether Scotland’s future lies inside the United Kingdom. That will be particularly true for a British government that now looks set to be led by a Scot, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.
But there are several reasons to believe that the government’s situation is not as electorally precarious as it might seem. Most immediately, May 8th will offer a reminder of what will surely be considered one of the finest achievements of Blair’s 10-year tenure in Downing Street: powers of government will be devolved from London to Northern Ireland, the strongest sign to date of a sustainable and peaceful solution to years of bitter conflict.
Furthermore, one participant at last week’s Brussels Forum noted that Blair’s government remains, after 10 years in power, relatively popular – despite polls suggesting that he is the most unpopular Prime Minister in modern history (similar polls once recorded his approval rating at 93% in the heady summer after coming to power). And, as Philip Stephens argues in a Financial Times column this week (registration required), his government have largely succeeded in transforming the terms of the political debate in the UK from the aftermath of the Thatcher era, to one in which a social democratic party is seen as a natural party of government – an achievement that largely eluded previous Labour governments. So while Gordon Brown will, should he take over, face the challenge of reinvigorating a government that faces effective opposition in parliament (something that Blair has faced in too few of his 10 years in power), then questions over Scotland’s future aside, he will at least be beginning on familiar territory.