Someone is clearly bluffing. Either the Labour backbenchers, who have been demanding a timetable for the hand over to Gordon Brown, are a lot weaker than they appeared to be, or Blair has acquired the self-control of a master
poker party player. Certainly this was a massive anticlimax for those who believed that the general election, and the loss of nearly 100 Labour seats, had been a watershed which would swiftly wash away Blair.
His loyalists were quick to seize the initiative, insisting after Wednesday’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party that the voice of the “silent majority” had been heard – the majority, that is, of Labour MPs who support their leader and just want to get on with the business of running the country for the next four years. The idea of a putsch against Blair was all got up by the press.
Well, there may only be a minority of hard-headed dissidents who want Blair to leave office immediately – the Bob Marshall-Andrews and Jeremy Corbyns – but many mainstream MPs feel that the PM has to ensure an orderly hand-over within two years. The next-but-one Labour conference is a popular date with destiny, after the G8 summit at Gleneagles and Britain’s presidency of the European Union, and after any referendum on the EU constitution...
