Month: March 2006

I’ve been sort of vaguely expecting that Tony Blair’s troubles would fade with the arrival of the warm weather and that, by conference time, he’d be secure again and ready for at least another year of office. I’ve been blithely (and largely unconsciously, I think) dismissing each new crisis – each new horrifying misstep more like – as the exaggerated product of the malign anti-Blair media’s bitter campaign against the PM and only incidentally a result of anything he’s done himself. So I suppose I’m a loyalist. I’m not stupid, though and I think an important threshold has been passed

I’m now mentally preparing myself for a Brown premiership. If I’m honest I’d say that it’s Brown’s succession that I’ve really been blocking out, rather than Blair’s passing. I’m worried. I think Tony’s dour neighbour is so lacking in the PM’s preternatural charm and quite awesome ability to absorb criticism (Blair seems to soak up disapproval and convert it to pure, undissipated energy), that putting Brown in sole charge of the action will directly threaten Labour’s hold on power.

Of course this is ironic since it’s really Labour’s Constant Chancellor we’ve got to thank for the visible and positive change in our schools and hospitals and for the large and important improvement in the circumstances of poor families and pensioners since 1997. The last couple of days seem to support the idea of a managed transition, as if they’ve got their heads together and sorted out an orderly process. Blair’s speech at Reuters yesterday reads like a valedictory, like the speech of a man preparing for his next role, perhaps running a transnational body – or founding a new one – I think he may be too big or too politically unsuitable for all the current ones.

Maybe Blair’s the man to set up the institute (agency? Force?) designed to do all the intervening in local wars and against dictators and demagogues that his speech proposes: shall we call it ‘UN 2.0’? Brown’s budget, likewise, sounds final: expansive, bravura redistributive showbiz, a grand, confident, proprietorial gesture. “I’m ready for my close-up Mr De Mille”. I’m certain now that Blair’s departure is imminent and I expect it’ll be done and dusted before the Autumn. An election early in the Summer recess would put Brown in place in time for conference and allow Blair at least a month or two to tie up those loose ends (and God knows, there are some loose ends…).

The thing about Britain’s big newspapers, the ones we call broadsheets (although they come in all sorts of sizes these days), is that they belong to two groups: pre-industrial, 18th Century landowner newsletters (like The Times) and steam-powered, 19th Century, industrial-era organs of the modern (like The Guardian). If you look very closely you can still see the shadow of their origins today. They’re all in decline, of course but one of them, Alan Rusbridger’s Guardian, finds itself, quite accidentally, in something of a sweet spot in this torrid political moment.

With all three major parties fighting over a very crowded scrap of territory about the size of a toupé, just to the left of the old-fashioned centre, The Guardian’s special relationship with both sides of the newly recentred British political scene has paid off in a big way. Essentially, if you want to read about politics in Britain now there’s very little point getting anything else, least of all the quite bankrupt (and very ugly) Times. Look at last week’s Guardian: Will Hutton’s hymn of praise for the Education Bill (admittedly in sister paper The Observer) cheek by jowl with Polly Toynbee’s open disgust.

Also of note, you’ve got Fiona Millar’s nicely forensic attempt to elucidate Gordon Brown’s education policy from years of speeches in which he doesn’t mention education at all and (off topic a bit, I know) there’s Simon Jenkins’ not-unfriendly hatchet job on the Beeb’s unhealthy hold over our legislators’ affections and, swinging back round to our theme, Jackie Ashley’s excellent piece about the surprising (and apparently total) victory of the centre-left in British politics. And, bringing us right up to date, here’s Martin Kettle’s assertion, on the paper’s new comment blog, that Jack Dromey dumped Blair in the political merde for reasons of purest principle and not because he was “…outraged to be snubbed by a Labour johnny-come-lately like Lord Levy…” There. Read that lot. Get yourself up to date.