Stephen Vasciannie

How did Tony Blair perform as British Prime Minister? There have been several areas of disappointment, but clearly the most fundamental problems arose from the Iraqi intervention. The Blair administration has been severely tarnished both by the decision to invade Iraq, and by casualties of war.

Thus, in recent years, Blair has walked within the shadow of the valley of Iraq. Fortunately for him, the opposition Conservative Party has remained generally supportive of the invasion; on his point of greatest vulnerability, Blair has not been too open to Conservative attacks. But the Liberal Democrats, opinion leaders and many individuals have raised the flag of resistance.

Attorney-General

With respect to the initial decision to intervene, Blair has also been subject to strong criticism within the ranks of his own Labour Party. Even among supporters of the New Labour project, critics questioned whether there was sufficient evidence to justify the invasion: for many such critics, the absence of evidence of weapons of mass destruction was indeed the evidence of absence of these weapons.

Then there was the so-called 'dodgy dossier', an attempt by Blair to convince his parliamentary colleagues about the need to intervene that failed almost completely. At the same time, the idea that the invasion was ill-advised was reinforced by the apparent ambivalence of the British Attorney-General on the lawfulness of the invasion. In the end, the Attorney-Generalindicated that the invasion was consistent with international law, but one is left with the impression that this was not an easy opinion from him.

The Iraqi shadow has also influenced broader perceptions of Blair. Have we not heard the charge that Blair is Bush's poodle? It is an unfair charge, and must be particularly galling to Blair given his strong, publicly stated religious inclinations and his sense of Britain's place in the world. The charge has also helped, perhaps unreasonably, to weaken Blair's stocks within the Labour Party. Presumably, for rank-and-file Labour supporters it was acceptable to work with Bill Clinton; but, to be embroiled in Iraq putatively at the behest of Bush fils has been a difficult pill to swallow.

On the purely domestic front, Prime Minister Blair contributed significantly to an increase in national self-understanding and collaboration. The campaign concerning 'cool Britannia' may have been rather gauche, but certainly Britain today - once you get past the immigration officers - is a more welcoming society than it was under Thatcher. Blair's willingness to appoint qualified black people to senior positions in government has also played some part in encouraging social cohesion and in redefining longstanding, but untrue, conceptions of 'Britishness'.

Blair had to contend with the horror of terrorism. The jury must still be out on whether his efforts cut too far into the civil liberties of the people. In the post-7/7 environment, though, there may well be majority support for greater curbs on individual rights in the interest of security.

Job Entitlement

Blair has also been tarnished by the 'cash for honours' scandal. The charge is that British honours were handed out in return for financial contributions (in the form of loans) to the Labour Party. What did the Prime Minister know, and when did he know it? And, was he part of an attempt to cover up the scandal - if there was such an attempt?

The final days also witnessed turbulence concerning Gordon Brown, Blair's logical successor. For at least five years, there has been talk of Brown's sense of entitlement for the job, a feeling of entitlement that is said to have been fed by a deal between Blair and Brown in a pub one day long ago. It is said that Blair promised to resign after a certain time, and to support Brown taking over from him,

Well, there's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip; and Brown, to his credit, has not publicly told any gathering that the job of Prime Minister will be his. He has demonstrated judgement: that, together with his strong stewardship over the economy, should make him a worthy successor to Blair.