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."
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS