The Blair Formula

...When contending with the difficulties besetting the country, he went on, "the radical decision is usually the right one...

...His ferst bold step in his latest incarnation involved foreign affairs, not an area where modern British prime ministers-with the notable exception of Winston Churchill-have made their names...

...Television comedians meanwhile grew adept at parodying his pause-laden speech pattern, making it seem that the PM, though sincere, was mouthing gibberish...

...He thinks the war on terrorism must be fought without limitation or letup (regardless of the embarrassing level of protection afforded by British courts to some England-based Islamist terror suspects...

...If the old ways worked," he sternly lectured the dissenters, "they would have worked by now...

...Norman Gelb reports regularly for The New Leader on British affairs...

...When the Prime Minister visited Washington he was asked to attend top-secret intelligence briefings...

...A correspondent for the Guardian was astonished by delegates "applauding policies they opposedcheering as the Prime Minister braced them for a program of 'reform' that may well clash with their deepest instincts...

...is our destiny...

...It was therefore assumed he would be the target of fierce reproach when the Labor Party held its annual conference at the seaside resort of Blackpool at the end of September...

...All this, it should be noted, did Blair's image no good in Britain...

...Small wonder, then, that President Bush spoke of Tony Blair as if he were family...

...Nervous hesitations in his off-the-cuff comments began to multiply...

...It is an abomination to the civic unions, who fear losing the ability to pressure management into relaxing tight budgetary constraints, and to Socialists pining for the lost ideological purity of the working-class movement...

...Nor did his standing improve when, trying to please everyone, he took to acting on the advice of often contradictory focus-group oracles...

...Violent crime soared...

...With the European Union (EU) hobbled by internal squabbling and by penny pinching on military hardware, Blair long ago recognized that any major international military operation in defense of Western interests could be led only by the United States...

...To demonstrate that he is not Bush's poodle, Blair brought his friend Bill Clinton along to Blackpool...

...And the Conservatives proceeded to rule for almost two decades...

...But, remarkably, soon after the conference opened Blair stole his critics' thunder...

...By contrast, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder let it be known that any "adventures" in Iraq would not get his approval, let alone his country's participation, and French President Jacques Chirac expressed similar sentiments...

...In an impressive second turnabout, he has begun to refashion himself as nothing less than an international statesman, a political engineer and a daring visionary...

...Displeased members were expected to sneer at him, interrupt him with catcalls and sit on their hands...

...So while continuing to offer strong endorsements for American policy on Iraq, he floated reservations about the hard line promulgated by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, et al...

...And the hardest decisions are often the least popular...

...In a truly impressive performance, he unfurled his new image and reached out to the assembly in personal as well as political terms...

...In demanding substantial pay increases, they threaten the relative economic stability underpinning Britain's basic programs...

...But his reputation tumbled badly after it became apparent that Britain's social and economic problems were far more resistant to solutions than he had suggested...

...After all, what's a friend for...

...Lord Jenkins, the distinguished historian and former Cabinet member, recently compared him favorably to the long-serving President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, noting that FDR also remolded his image while in power...

...Blair was not censorious...

...Together with delegates who continue to revile the PM as Bush's toady, they were thought to be preparing to make their bitterness clearly heard...

...At the very least, it contributed to the President's reluctant agreement not to defy the international community and to accept the return of UN inspection teams to Iraq...

...As banner headlines never failed to remind him, however, his troubles were hardly over...

...Things were still going dreadfully wrong in the National Health Service...

...Having gained Bush's trust and affection, he discreetly promoted the measured realism of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in the hope of persuading the President to rethink his "my way or the highway" attitude toward Saddam...

...He believes as resolutely as Bush that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction must be eradicated...

...He was derided as Bush's "poodle" and flunky...

...Yet more than once since capturing the Labor Party leadership in 1994, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair has dared to change rather profoundly...

...Nevertheless, in June 2001 the remarkable shallowness at the core of the opposition Conservative Party guaranteed Labor's re-election with a substantial majority in the House of Commons...

...Accordingly, he sought to defuse a developing crisis of confidence between the United States and countries it normally regards as allies...

...Despite the belated respect for Blair's diplomacy, there remained reason for him to be concerned about the domestic political climate...

...Still, he feels it is a mistake to scorn diplomacy when pursuing results in the international arena...

...The previous Labor government was brought down by the havoc their lengthy strikes wreaked across the countryhospital wards were closed, garbage went uncollected, jobs were lost...

...Convinced that the health of Britain's economy ultimately will depend on further economic integration with the EU, Blair addressed the sizable opposition on this issue by flatly saying of the European currency, "the Euro...

...The public service unions have already begun to flex their own muscles...

...He made his strongest case yet for PFI, which has met a lot of resistance in the Labor Party ranks...

...Fortunately for him, he does not have to act on that front in the immediate future because of the EU's current financial muddles...

...It would be premature, however, to conclude that the new Tony Blair is home free...

...Whether Iraq actually possessed weapons of mass destruction became a source of widespread doubts, but Blair firmly dismissed them, citing evidence contained in British intelligence dossiers...

...So masterful was Blair's performance, and so ecstatic his reception, that some here later maintained he might well be the dominant political figure in the country for another decade...

...Was the United Nations really useless in the drive to disarm Saddam...

...Blair's exact direction, though, was not immediately discernible...

...Having received that vote of confidence, albeit for negative reasons, Blair underwent an extraordinary metamorphosis that had him displaying renewed determination (see "Tony Blair Transformed," NL, November/December 2001...

...Blair also started to carefully sound notes of dissent that were different in style, but not completely in significance, from the expressed reservations of European officials who found Bush's approach arrogant and alarming...

...Little by little, his total support for the White House's Iraq policy began to accumulate nuances and ambiguities...

...It remains to be seen how steadfast he will be and how his present popularity will endure as he presses ahead with the controversial domestic initiatives he has promised...

...Many who believe in him started to suspect he was no more than a might-have-been...

...But over the past several months Blair has shown signs of rising to the challenge...

...An established image and a familiar modus operandi are generally features such individuals cultivate to distinguish themselves from their competing peers...

...No one anticipated the response the new Tony Blair received from his fellow Laborites...

...That led him to push for what has become the most controversial policy of his second term-the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), apian for injecting badly needed extra capital into key civil services by permitting private companies to invest in them...

...He is an imaginative, resourceful politician, but there have been too many ups and downs in his tenure to believe that what we see is what we will get from here on in...

...As if that were not bad enough, the embarrassingly transparent tricks of his spin doctors became the target of media mockery...

...But the delayed, understated messages from a proven friend were there for Washington to take into account...

...Following the September 11, 2001 atrocities, no foreign head of government was as conspicuous as Blair in his resolve to stand "shoulder to shoulder with our American friends...

...Enemy Number One, to the dismay of much of the rest of the world, Blair went against the tide by testifying that Iraq truly posed the threat the White House depicted...

...He did not make a big fuss...

...He looked older, less straight shouldered...

...Whatever might happen in Baghdad, there was little doubt here that Blair's formula of wholeheartedly supporting Bush, followed by tactful qualifying recommendations, would be seen as having had an important effect...

...He thus grew determined to position Britain as a bridge between America and the Continent where their policies and interests did not converge...

...The ex-President dazzled the crowd with a rousing speech...

...His support was warmly welcomed in Washington, where President George W Bush observed, "There's a lot of hate out there and it's good to know we have friends abroad...

...But it gradually became clear that Blair was being misjudged...

...By the time he was chosen prime minister in 1997, Tony Blair was one of the most popular politicians in recent British memory...

...Indeed, London Times columnist Mary Ann Sieghart wrote, "The Prime Minister has only just found his feet...

...Once more Blair seemed shaken by his government's inability to cope with concerns closest to citizens' daily lives...

...The man he had been, who wanted to please everyone, Blair declared, was no more...

...instead, he was repeatedly given exuberant standing ovations...

...The invitations to the briefings, and to the President's Crawford, Texas ranch, were seen by some as further evidence of the PM's submissiveness to the U.S...

...And the education system needed so much fixing that civil servants assigned to the task did not know where to start...

...The right decision is usually the hardest one...

...Subtly buried in his tough words of solidarity were urgings that Bush re-examine the situation...

...Later, when Saddam Hussein became U.S...

...The conference closed on October 2 not to "The Red Flag," the old Labor Party anthem, but to "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow," Clinton's stirring Presidential campaign song...

...Public transport, including the once lauded London Underground, continued to be plagued by breakdowns and accidents, making getting to work and back home an ordeal that was occasionally hazardous for thousands of people...

...Confessing that he had often sought approval for its own sake, he said his years at the helm had finally taught him that popularity was a mirage, and excessive caution was a huge mistake...

...Was regime change in Baghdad positively essential...

...On the Continent, Blair was spoken of disparagingly as Bush's salesman and for being out of his depth in trying to tackle the Middle East...

...The Prime Minister is no dove...

...Blair also defiantly told the many pacifists among the delegates that if military might finally proves the only way to destroy Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, then military might it will bewith British forces participating fully...

...The moment was approaching, according to Labor Party scuttlebutt, to consider grooming a new leader...

...The clique of habitual anti- Americans in the Labor audience heard him reiterate his faith in the long established BritishAmerican alliance, and vow that he "will fight long and hard to maintain it...

...Aware that he faces formidable obstacles in enacting such decisions, he challenged the delegates to move forward at his side: "We are at our best when at our boldest...

...He agreed with Bush, too, about the importance of quelling that threat as soon as possible, through military force if necessary...

...These conclaves are often marked by fraternal strife, and this year far-Left figures who are acutely critical of the way Blair has shifted the party to the center were elected to leadership positions by the powerful, disgruntled public service unions...

...Administration...

...He was playing a far more clever game than his critics imagined...

...Grumblings of disenchantment could be heard in his own Labor Party, and more pronounced criticism emerged from other circles here...

...It was as if they suddenly found the leader they had been looking for all along...

...His government's renewed efforts to improve the deteriorating public services were largely unsuccessful...

...It could happen again...