TIME EUROPE
June 5, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 22
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Tony Blair gave birth to a new Labour Party, but the Prime Minister's promise of a "modern Britain" is going to take much longer to deliver
By J.F.O. MCALLISTER London
Wearing blue jeans, a tieless white shirt, socks but no shoes, Tony Blair comes padding to the back of the aging jet on which British Prime Ministers travel. It's midnight, but he's energetic despite his long day: talks with Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, a press conference, more meetings and tours, finally a four-hour performance (pregnant wife Cherie in attendance) of Prokofiev's opera War and Peace. Its blood-soaked libretto reveling in the destruction of Russia's enemies at the time of Napoleon resonates eerily with the horrors of Chechnya that Blair had been discussing earlier with Putin. "Very patriotic," Blair deadpans.
He begins to share his impressions of Putin with reporters who crowd around, kneeling on seats and straining to hear him over the engines. The mood is informal but Blair's purpose, as always, is serious: to draw us into the world of the hard decisions he must weigh, hoping to soften criticism that his trip amounted to coddling Chechnya's chief war criminal. He describes Putin's intelligence and toughness, his un-Soviet willingness to debate points over lunch without resorting to notes. Putin gave him an earful about the dangers to the whole Caucasus of terrorism masquerading as Islam; Blair responded that Russian military action should be "proportionate" and that all war crimes allegations should be investigated. Putin "took on board" everything he had to say about human rights, Blair recounts. But did Putin promise anything specific? "We'll have to see what happens," Blair says. Then for a second he looks off as if thinking to himself, gives a small shrug, and moves to another topic.
It is the most revealing moment of the trip, that shrug: the authentic gesture of a realist. He does not fuss about what he cannot change. Blair knew perfectly well that Putin had been ignoring for months all Western pleas on Chechnya. He was glad to restate the argument for moderation and human rights monitors but expected nothing. He came courting to St. Petersburg anyway, because he is convinced that Russia's thousands of nukes and its fitful search for a path to modernity give Britain a powerful interest in engaging its new boss. For Blair, politics is not sentiment or aspiration, but results. As he once proclaimed to the French National Assembly: "What counts is what works."
Since he took charge of the Labour Party in 1994, Blair's detractors on both left and right have had contempt for that deep-rooted pragmatism, believing it not so much a political philosophy as an excuse to do whatever will get him through the next news cycle. Roy Hattersley, the party's former deputy leader, calls it "taking the politics out of politics." But given Labour's transformation under Blair's leadership from a defensive, ideologically fractured vote loser to a party of government with a 179-seat majority, his critics have had to acknowledge his competence even if they still deride as vapid his vision of a "modern" Britain, both more enterprising and more compassionate. As Prime Minister he has continued to stress results, mainly practical improvements in the quality of government services, from waiting lists in the National Health Service to a comprehensive attack on long-term unemployment.
But a funny thing has happened on the way to the next election. The Prime Minister who has staked himself to results is finding them hard to deliver. Fixing the National Health Service — which ran out of emergency beds last winter and makes some heart bypass patients wait a year or more for their surgery — is costing more and taking longer than voters expected. School class sizes are dropping in the youngest grades, but rising in others. Crime is on the up. Dissent from inside Labour, never entirely absent, has suddenly flourished, with formerly loyal supporters calling Blair a "control freak," deaf to the party's core supporters, niggardly with pensioners, isolated.
Blair has given them some ammunition, particularly his fixation on keeping the left-wing Ken Livingstone from becoming London's mayor. He rigged the Labour primary against Livingstone in a way widely viewed as unfair and meddlesome, and even so failed miserably when Livingstone won as an independent, with lots of support from Labour voters eager to take Blair down a peg.
All these problems are corroding his most potent political armor, Labour's buoyant approval ratings. It's now only eight points ahead of the Conservatives in one survey of how people intend to vote at the next election, though more than double that in others. The Tories won the European Parliament elections last summer and 593 local council seats last month, largely because Labour voters stayed home. Tory leader William Hague has made some well-timed populist appeals for more cops and tougher treatment of criminals and asylum seekers. Last week he promised a $10.42 weekly rise in the basic state pension, capitalizing on anger at Labour's elegantly designed but poorly understood system of a $1.12 increase coupled with other allowances targeted at the poorest pensioners.
Blair himself is becoming less popular, with one poll finding 34% satisfied with the job he's doing, while 33% are not. The birth of little Leo appears to have given his dad a baby present of three or four points, but after three years of flatlining, the Conservatives at least have a pulse. Francis Maude, their shadow foreign minister, argues that "if you look carefully at Labour's support at the last election, it was broad but pretty thin. I think it's brittle. It's like a sheet of ice across a lake, which can look fine for a long time but then gets a few cracks and suddenly disappears."
The Tories should be so lucky. But Maude raises a question that Blair and his closest aides are fretting about too: Are they just suffering from normal midterm blues, when the compromises needed to run a complex government with finite resources collide with the high expectations that accompany a landslide? Or is it something more serious? Ben Pimlott, Warden of Goldsmiths College and historian of the Labour Party, puts his finger on Blair's dilemma: "Will it go down as a great radical government, or one that had a great opportunity but squandered its majority?"
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June 5, 2000
COVER
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Tony Blair gave birth to a new Labour Party, but the Prime Minister's promise of a "modern Britain" is going to take much longer to deliver
New Kid on the Block
An open letter to Leo Blair, Britain's youngest celebrity
EUROPE
A Difficult Performance
David Trimble squeezes a close vote from his party to rejoin Northern Ireland's government
All Quiet on the Eastern Front
A decade after the end of the cold war, Germany plans to revamp its army
Guilt by Association
In an apparent postwar payback, a Serbian court jails a group of Kosovo Albanians for "terrorism"
MIDDLE EAST
Courage under Fire
In a defining moment, Prime Minister Ehud Barak makes good on his promise to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon
The Time Had Come To End a Tragedy
Israel's Prime Minister insists that withdrawing from Lebanon will not harm security, and he warns against a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state
AFRICA
Showdown to Savagery
After Ethiopian forces blitz their way into Eritrea, a bloody two-year war may be closer to its conclusion
Hope Springs Internal
African women may be the key to saving the chaotic continent
BUSINESS
The Money Game
Even as football's cup runneth over, there is a growing sense of unease among fans that riches may ruin their sport
For Love and Money
Why shouldn't a top-level footballer earn as much as an actor does?
Fertile Fields
Movers and takers
Beenz Counters
An upstart firm tries to make its new product the first legal tender of the World Wide Web
The New European Challenge
E.U. firms must grasp the opportunities of an expanding home market
THE ARTS
Dark Victory
At Cannes this year, the jury danced with Björk, but some fine Asian films made a lasting impression
The Art of Science
The eclectic but elegant Musée des arts et métiers reopens in Paris after a decade-long restoration
DEPARTMENTS
Techwatch
World Watch
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