Blair's Next Move

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That tension lies behind his most consistent mistake in office: an impulse to be a "control freak"--as when he devolved power to the Welsh assembly and the London mayor but then tried to rig things so his cronies would be in charge. In both cases the locals rebelled, and Blair looked both sinister and silly. His ambitions to remake the country are so big that it may be hard for the control freak to resist grabbing even more levers of power.

Yet there are two reasons to think that may not happen. First, faced with swelling resentment from doctors and teachers over a blizzard of detailed performance targets spewing from London, he is planning to give them more money and autonomy. That means a less centralized vision for reform. And, say several people close to him, Blair is changing. "He's more confident," says one. "There's a serenity that's new." In this case, will the personal become the political? If, as Blair says, the success of his reforms depends on decentralizing power, the fate of the two Britains may depend to a surprising degree on what is happening inside the mind of the one man at the top.

Meanwhile, outside the ward where Paddy Brunton died, work has begun on a new hospital wing. It is due to open in 2004--two years before the next general election must be called.