Tony Blair's Perfect Storm

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Another weakness for Blair is the surprising force of "Old Labour," the party members who stress social justice over technocratic reform and have grown impatient with his penchant for the private sector. They rebelled last year over injecting more private money and control into hospitals, and have drawn the line at tuition fees. For some, the unambiguous promise in Labour's last manifesto not to raise them in this Parliament ended the matter, even if Blair's changes wouldn't come into effect until 2006. Others think the Exchequer should cough up the funds to restore the system they enjoyed as students, where the government paid nearly all tuition and living expenses. They think Blair's plan to require fees of up to €4,360 per year will discourage poorer applicants. The government tried to counter this complaint by deferring all repayments until the graduate earns at least €21,800 per year. The poorest third would also get grants to defray some of their debts. But Nick Brown, a former Agriculture Minister and leading rebel, thinks this won't help the hardworking lower-middle classes who are Labour's core voters. "This plan would 'dumb down' our people," he argues.

For many opponents, the fine points of policy aren't the point. Some want to destabilize Blair to help his chief rival Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Six years into government, there's a sizable clutch of resentful ex-ministers and others stuck on the backbenches. And some Labour M.P.s have wanted to signal deep frustration that Downing Street policy wonks don't consult them enough before uncorking big bills. "There's been too much policy by laptop," admits James Purnell, a former Downing Street wonk who is now an M.P.

Government whips hoped that the peril Blair faced from Hutton would forge party discipline for the vote on tuition fees, but rebels dismissed that as scaremongering. They doubted that Hutton, an establishment figure whose every judicial inclination has been to avoid meddling in politics, would really blast the Prime Minister so fiercely that Blair would have to resign. Blair's own aides seem to agree. And certainly Hutton had many other legitimate targets to choose from, including the BBC and Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon. But the brisk rectitude Hutton displayed through months of hearings kept open the possibility of a body blow that could force Blair from office.

But Blair has never been one to wait for blows to land. In speeches and on TV and radio, he hammered home the virtues of his bill, and by implication his premiership. Last week his aides were planning a blitz of new initiatives in health, crime and transport on the assumption he'd at least stay in office, and perhaps emerge safe and dry from both Hutton and tuition fees. They find the alternative — leading a fractious, 1980s-style Labour Party unwilling to follow its leader — so gruesome that they could hardly bear to think about it. "All U.K. experience is that it's a disaster for the governing party to be seen as divided," says one Blair aide.

Recrimination and bad press would hand the Conservatives a chance for revival before a general election expected next year. But even the narrowest victory could let Blair climb back, says Nick Sparrow, managing director of ICM Research. "People don't want wishy-washy Prime Ministers. In six months, if they think Blair stuck to what he believes in, a narrow victory could do him good." A senior Blair aide agrees, but harbors at least a tiny doubt about this week. "It could be the end of the beginning," he says. "Or it could be the end of us."