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Friday, Sept. 29, 2006
The struggle to follow Blair
By DAVID HOWELL
LONDON -- The struggle for the succession to the premiership, when Tony Blair
finally goes, is assuming all the qualities of a Shakespearean play.
Shakespeare wrote copiously about the bitter, and often bloody, disputes between
rivals for the English throne, with weak kings being ousted by ambitious rivals,
devious plots to seize the crown, and faction and treason in abundance.
Now the pattern is being re-enacted, complete with conspiracies, denials,
opposing camps, vindictive personal attacks, dramatic entries and exits and all
the other excitements to keep the audience at fever pitch. As so often, true
life is outperforming the stage, as Blair's grasp on power weakens and the chief
claimant to fill his role, Gordon Brown, gathers his troops and allies round him
and prepares his bid for the crown.
Since Blair some time ago announced his intention to retire before the next
British general election, probably in 2009, it might be imagined that this would
pave the way for a reasonably smooth succession process. With his hitherto close
ally and friend Brown, being long acknowledged as the second most powerful man
in the Cabinet and the ruling Labour Party after Blair himself, a graceful and
amiable passing on of the mantle at the agreed moment might have been expected.
But that would be to reckon without all the personal ambitions, antagonisms,
hopes and fears of modern politics, as well as the heavy influence of outside
events that make up the political brew. Blair has said he will depart sometime
next year, giving his successor ample time to settle in before the general
election battle. But Brown and his allies are getting impatient, and with good
reason. Events may not be working their way.
Hitherto Brown has been able to sustain his right to the political throne on the
basis of a relatively successful tenure at the Treasury (Finance Ministry) and
his own experience and obvious ability. But now some clouds are gathering.
First, the economic outlook may no longer be quite so cloudless, with inflation
returning, the world economy slowing, personal debt piling up and talk of still
higher taxes to meet ever-swelling public-spending commitments. Second, with the
Conservative main opposition party now headed by an agile and dynamic young
figure, David Cameron, Brown is beginning to be seen as -- in the fashionable
expression -- a bit "yesterday," on the old side and too closely associated not
just with Blair's triumphs but also with his failures. Third, he is seen as
charmless and dour (which is probably unfair, since he has a brilliant wit) and
filled with out-of-date ideas about the need for excessive governmental control
of people's lives and work -- in other words, more of an old-fashioned state
socialist than Blair, who had managed to drag the British Labour Party away from
statist thinking and centralism toward a less interventionist and more
market-friendly stance.
The awful thought is entering the minds of the Labour rank-and-file, and
especially the minds of younger Labour members of Parliament with small
majorities, that changing Blair for Brown may after all be not such a good idea
and could weaken rather than strengthen Labour's standing in the public mind.
The whole scene tends to be analyzed in domestic terms, but the backdrop to the
drama lies, as so often in Shakespeare's original plays, in foreign fields.
Labour supporters have come to distrust Blair because they strongly dislike his
foreign policy. They loathe his alliance with U.S. President George W. Bush,
which they regard as much too close and also too subservient, and they are
utterly dismayed at the course of events in Iraq and the Middle East generally,
and at the Bush doctrine for creating "A New Middle East" by a mixture of
imposed democracy and overwhelming force -- which seems anyway to be both
shallow and flawed.
The feeling is widespread, and not just in Labour ranks, that as America's world
reputation sags, Britain's reputation and influence have been dragged down with
it into the Iraqi quagmire. The Blair stance on the recent Israeli invasion of
Lebanon -- appearing to back American approval for the heavy-handed methods used
-- was for many the final straw.
As the killing in the Middle East continues, and the Bush strategy falters more
and more, a mood of "anything but Blair" has rapidly developed.
As so often with emotional impulses, the mood leaves a number of hard and
detailed questions unresolved. Will Brown be any different or better on the
overseas front? If Cameron and the Conservatives start inching away from blanket
approval of American policy, will Brown do so, too? Or might Labour fortunes be
improved by turning to a younger candidate who could make a clean break with
Blairite thinking and put up a better fight against the youthful Conservative
challenger in two or three years' time?
A number of younger rivals to Brown are beginning to emerge, complicating the
dilemma for Labour MPs and giving the media juicy material to cover page after
page of stories about the in-fighting, the rumors and the political maneuvering.
Blair keeps smiling, and traveling the world in his statesman role. But he must
rue the day he announced that he would be going, so setting a period of feverish
speculation in motion. He must also wonder whether his foreign-policy balance,
with its attempt to be a "bridge" between the United States and Europe, can hold
up, or whether it is leaving Britain in a kind of limbo, as many fear, with
diminished influence on both sides of the Atlantic.
Perhaps as events swirl around him and fickle destiny unfolds, he might find
comfort in a little Shakespeare -- preferably one of the plays that ends in
triumph rather than tragedy.
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