Going Ungently

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Nine years in office is long enough for public opinion to curdle on any politician, but Tony Blair's fall from grace has been particularly poignant. Last week, as he stonewalled reporters about exactly when he would depart 10 Downing Street and fielded clunky ripostes to the zingers of the new Conservative leader, David Cameron, he seemed a different man from the vigorous, fresh-faced powerhouse who rode a landslide to office in 1997. Only a year after winning Labour's first consecutive third term in office, he is being drenched in a storm of public disdain. "Blair should go and give a different leader a chance," says Josie Brown, a mature student in London, over lunch in the park. "I think he should have gone a long time ago," says Andrew Jackson, a TV executive, while leafing through the Financial Times. Francis Duncan, head of a Scottish taxi company, puts it bluntly: "Vote Tory! We're pissed off with Blair."

Voters are queuing up to bury Blair, not to praise him. He is now the most unpopular Labour Prime Minister since World War II, with a 26% approval rating. In local elections two weeks ago Labour took a drubbing, slumping to third place behind the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Polls indicate that people now consider Labour sleazier and more internally divided than the Tories.

And Blair's a lame duck to boot. To secure the help of Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, his impatient heir apparent, in last year's election, Blair declared he would quit during this Parliament: effectively no later than 2009. Already half of voters want him to go by the end of the year; 36% say immediately. To prolong his clout he refuses to set a date, and supporters blandly declare that polls can go up as well as down. But the political village at Westminster is so consumed with succession gossip and plots that his authority is fading anyway. Outside Westminster, where it really counts, the mood music is scratchy. "Blair should've gone out on a high and given Brown a chance to make his mark, whereas now we're left with this crappy infighting," says Neil Pennill, an information-technology worker in London, whose colleagues, dining with him, nod in agreement.

As with George W. Bush, his friend across the Atlantic, Iraq is the mother of all Blair's troubles. Voters think he stretched the case for war beyond what the evidence could bear — and the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction, plus the continuing mess in the country, have drained his credibility. "I didn't have any problems with him before the war," says Nigel Williams, a marketing manager. "Now I think he should concede." Ed Owen, who advised Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for 12 years before starting a political-communications firm, spent last month campaigning to become a Labour councillor in his London borough. Owen found "a good deal of hostility to Blair among middle-class, liberal-leaning Labour supporters, much of it wrapped up with Iraq," he says. And he adds, ruefully, that "Blair is no longer the unfailing and extraordinary asset he was when he burst onto the scene 12 years ago." But Iraq was a mess a year ago — and Blair still won re-election. So why do things feel so different now? One reason is the start of a Tory revival under Cameron, which means that Blair is no longer the only game in town. And a spate of recent scandals, including ministerial sexual shenanigans, have recalled the venality and incompetence that dogged the dying days of the 18-year-long Tory regime, which Blair tossed into the garbage can of history in 1997. Blair's reputation for decisive leadership has consistently been his ace in the hole. Last year, despite doubts about his honesty, 60% of Britons polled considered him a "strong leader." The scandals have corroded that approbation.

Labour Members of Parliament fear the Prime Minister's decline will become a death spiral for the party, making potential Labour voters forget what Blair's government has achieved. The National Health Service, for example, has enjoyed record budgets under Blair, and by many indicators, Britons' health has improved. But recent layoffs in some regional health authorities have led people to think the whole system is sick — which gets magnified by the government's other missteps and the general dyspepsia people feel toward its leader. According to the Deloitte/Ipsos MORI Delivery Index released last Friday, public expectations of what the government will accomplish as it tries to rejuvenate public services are now at an all-time low. Only 33% think they'll get better; only 22% expect the nhs to improve, which is a big drop from last year, thought to be caused in part by the government's general malaise. Yet further paralysis, as Brown tries to squeeze Blair out without provoking a rupture — "regicide is suicide," says a Minister and Blair ally — seems inevitable while Blair remains Prime Minister.