Once again, the poodle follows his master

Tony Blair, unchastened by his humiliating victory in this weeks election, has decided he, too, has a mandate. So I guess it shouldn't surprise me that he's following in Bush's footsteps by assuming a narrow victory means he can have unchecked power.

You see, Tony and heir apparent Gordon Brown are already in a spat over cabinet appointments.

Within 24 hours of the end of the campaign, the united front adopted by Labour's two most powerful men was cracking over plans to parachute a controversial Downing Street adviser into government - and speculation over the timing of the Prime Minister's departure.

Blair is trying to force an un-elected figure unpopular with the backbenchers into a position under the Education Secretary. 

The first serious test of the truce between the two men emerged yesterday, over plans to propel Blair's policy adviser Andrew Adonis - an unelected former SDP activist who is widely mistrusted by the Labour backbenches - into government as deputy to Education Secretary Ruth Kelly. He is said to be frustrated that education did not get a higher profile during the election campaign.

I can't help but see shades of the John Bolton (and Condi Rice and Abu Gonzales) nomination here. No one ever expected Bush to act conciliatory after the election. But it still seemed like, in the face of a close election, he tried to shore up power by daring his opponents to cross him. He advanced outrageous choices for cabinet positions and forced a number of moderates into an uncomfortable position supporting people and policies they likely knew to be dangerous for this country. So long as none of the moderates voted against Bush's nominees, it actually increased party discipline. It made the moderates complicit in these appointments--and therefore less able to object to the policies the appointees will implement.

A smart criminal is going to make a wavering gang member the point person in a dangerous crime, because it will force the gang member to demonstrate his loyalty and will ensure that the he can't split from the gang without facing stiffer penalties himself. Bush is trying to make sure Lincoln Chafee is caught on tape holding up the bank tellers so he can't betray the whole gang.

It seems like Blair is trying to do the same--force a confrontation early on, so that, if he wins this battle, he will have undercut the room for opposition to him.

It remains to be seen how successful either of these men will be. We'll see this week whether the filibuster fight or the Bolton nomination (or both) will produce a schism rather than greater discipline in Bush's coalition. At the very least, Bush has lost control of the fundies, which means he may not be able to avoid an embarrassing loss on the filibuster vote.

Meanwhile, you'd think Labour has more leverage over Blair than Republican Senators do over Bush. But Blair's manipulations are much more sophisticated than Bush's crude fear-mongering. And he has several means with which to undercut Brown in the near term.

The reshuffle announced on Friday night is more widely seen at Westminster as warding off threats to Blair's grip on the leadership. One aide said it showed that 'Tony is going to be around for a while', a message to be reinforced this week by a major speech outlining plans for public service reform.

Putting Douglas Alexander, a protege of Gordon Brown, into cabinet as Minister for Europe has in effect tied the Brown camp to the outcome of next year's EU constitution referendum - thwarting the hopes of some backbenchers that if the government lost it, Blair would have to resign early.

If I were Blair, I would assume the leaks on pre-war intelligence released this week came from the Brown camp. So I would waste no opportunity to go on the offensive in the weeks ahead.

We'll see whether the strategy of ratcheting up the stakes and daring a confrontation works for either of these two men.

 

Comments

[James]

Blair is even more contemptuous in my mind than Bush because Blair should have known better. Blair also seems to have far more public goodwill (at least in the US) than Bush and I notice people tend to try to blame Bush for Blair's problems.

Thank you for opting not to do that and reminding us that Blair is an extremely dangerous man in his own right.

[emptywheel]

In some ways, Blair is more dangerous. He's a much better politician than Bush. And he's not term-limited, so he's got reason to continue fighting like a pole-cat. It could get interesting--particularly with all the EU-related jockeying coming up.