SEVEN WEEKS ON from the general election, the Blair Government is in surprisingly good shape, publicly at least. And surprisingly, because immediately after May 5, there was a lot of talk about the erosion in Tony Blair’s authority and the big problems he would face in the Commons with a much reduced majority. Several Labour MPs publicly urged him to go sooner, rather than later.
But now the mood looks more settled. The resignation dogs are no longer barking, for the moment. Mr Blair is in robust form, enlivened, rather than worn down, by his exchanges with President Chirac in Brussels. The disappearance of a referendum on the EU constitution has removed one threat to Mr Blair’s tenure. And the Government is largely being given a free ride by the Tories, who are yet again just talking to themselves.
Mr Blair’s friends say that his private target date for departure remains the autumn of 2008, though, like all prime ministers, he is imprecise about when the real date will be. Even ministers looking ahead to the Brown regime talk of a change no earlier than the summer of 2007.
In Parliament, the earlier worries look overdone, or premature. A majority of 68 (66 after the two vacancies are filled) should be enough most of the time, especially when you add on the five Sinn Fein MPs who do not take their seats and other minority MPs who do not always vote. There was only a mini-revolt on Tuesday against the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. The first big test will come next Tuesday on the Identity Cards Bill.
Twenty-six Labour MPs voted against the second or third readings of the original bill lost at the election, of whom seven are no longer in the Commons. A further 27 signed a motion hostile to ID cards, but did not vote against. Several have either joined the Government or changed their minds. No one yet knows how many of the 40 new Labour MPs will rebel, probably not many on a manifesto pledge.
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Moreover, quite a few Tories are likely to abstain rather than vote against the Bill. This is not because they like ID cards, but because they do not like being told to stand on their heads after the party voted for the Bill last December. Also, some on the Centre Left are not keen to change their votes merely to suit David Davis. So the Government should win next week’s vote. Close votes will unquestionably come in the Commons, but not necessarily defeats.
The Government may find the Lords is a much greater test. Despite becoming the largest single party in the Lords for the first time, Labour remains in a minority and can easily be outvoted by the Tories and the Liberal Democrats together. This has increasingly happened as the removal of most hereditaries in 1999 emboldened peers, who defeated the Government twice as often in the 2001-05 period as in the first term.
Labour’s re-election on less than 36 per cent of the total vote, the lowest ever share, has led to sabre-rattling by the opposition parties. The Lib Dems have challenged the 60-year-old Salisbury convention under which the Lords does not defeat or wreck Bills which have been in a manifesto. Lord Strathclyde, the Conservative leader, has been more cautious, accepting the essence of the convention but arguing that it should not be used to justify any attempt to limit the powers of the Lords.
These battles are some way ahead. In the short term, the main problems are less about relations with Parliament than arguments inside the Government. However, since the election Mr Blair has largely been an international prime minister. This summer interlude has been unavoidable — last week’s Brussels summit, the G8 meeting in Gleneagles in a fortnight and all the associated globetrotting.
Important issues, such as EU finances, farm subsidies, responses to globalisation, aid to Africa and climate change, are being discussed. Mr Blair’s policy is right on most of these matters. The effort is justified, even if the results may not match the good intentions.
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But Mr Blair quickly needs to become a domestic prime minister again. The picture at home is less happy. There is a lot of activity but little sense of direction about what Mr Blair wants to achieve in his remaining years in office. There are lots of unresolved questions: for example, about how far to permit the creation of new voluntary and privately run schools within the state-funded sector. David Blunkett has opened up the whole debate on the reform of invalid ity benefit and pensions. We are promised White Papers for the main public services this autumn before legislation over the winter. The decisions in the new, single-subject Cabinet committees will be crucial, and, in part, determine the extent of any late parliamentary revolts.
But underlying these debates is a big strategic argument: about how Labour can win a fourth term. Gordon Brown’s backers believe that he can win back many Labour supporters who either abstained or switched to the Lib Dems in 2001 and 2005. So, by mobilising the dormant Left vote, some Brown advisers argue that Labour no longer needs to focus so much on allegedly right-wing areas such as crime and immigration. This is a trap since many working- class voters are very concerned with these matters. Mr Blair won three elections in a row by occupying the centre ground and forcing his opponents to the extremes. Any move away from this territory could provide an opportunity for the Tories, if they are capable of taking it. The danger for Labour is that its votes, and majorities, in its safe seats could rise sharply, but that the party could lose seats in Middle England.
The next election seems a long way away, thank goodness. But decisions taken this summer will have a crucial bearing on the outcome. The Government’s post-election honeymoon is deceptive.
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