Labour scans post-Blair horizon

Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political Correspondent, BBC News website

The leadership succession will haunt the conference

More than ever, this year's Labour Party conference will be dominated by the issue of the leadership.

If some of the trade union big guns get their way, Tony Blair's speech will be his last as leader, certainly his last but one. The prime minister, needless to say, has other ideas.

Gordon Brown, meanwhile, will be expected to deliver one of his now traditional prime ministerial performances to remove any fresh doubts over his "natural" succession and remind the party why he is still their man and bearer of the Labour soul.

And much of the gossip around the conference will centre on exactly when that expected handover of power will happen.

Changes ahead?

Every speech, media appearance and fringe meeting will be scrutinised for any sign of the great men's intentions.

It is pretty clear Tony Blair will want to use what time there is left to him to secure that much-talked-of legacy. By this time in 2006 he will almost certainly have run out of time.

To that end, the prime minister will want to use the rally, as he is planning to use the following parliamentary session, to drive forward and irrevocably embed the radical public service reforms he wants to serve as part of that legacy.

This year's party conference will be looking to develop the post-Blair programme for a Real Labour government Campaign Group statement

As he told his Cabinet recently, he plans to publish a raft of policy papers this autumn setting out detailed reforms in schools, care outside hospitals, the so-called respect agenda and welfare reform to take forward the manifesto commitments.

"The Labour government will push on with shaping the challenges of the massively changing world in a way that delivers modern public services, driven by Labour values of social justice," he told them.

The left of the party, and many trade unionists and grassroots members, however, appear eager for change.

Brown put on warning

The left-wing Campaign Group, while not a major force in the parliamentary party, echoed that wider feeling with a statement declaring Mr Blair had "at most" 24 months left in office and planned a "scorched earth" programme of New Labour policies before it departed the scene and entered Labour history.

It said: "Labour Party members want to move on, not move backwards.

Iraq has exploded back into the headlines in such a way as to reopen old wounds.

"This year's party conference will be looking to develop the post-Blair programme for a Real Labour government, not a warmed-up Blairite programme of privatisation, public sector job cuts, cuts in benefits and attacks on civil liberties."

That was also a pretty unambiguous warning to Gordon Brown about what will be expected from him if and when he takes over.

And while the chancellor may not lose too much sleep over what the Campaign Group wants, this is a message he has also received from union bosses he does have to worry about.

Hanging over all of this, there is Iraq and what increasingly appears to be its descent into civil war.

Images of Iraq have been splashed across the media

Once again, just days before the conference, the conflict has exploded back into the headlines in such a way as to reopen old wounds.

Worse for the prime minister is the image splashed over every front page and every news broadcast of a British squaddie engulfed in flames as he attempted to escape a mob fire-bombing his armoured vehicle.

It is images like that, as was discovered in the Vietnam war, that can turn the tide of domestic opinion.

There are now growing demands, even from some war supporters, for the prime minister to set a timetable for the withdrawal of British troops.

That would represent a major reverse for Mr Blair and he is not about to go down that route at the conference.

But look for all the talk of "sticking with it until the job is done" to be laced with hints about bringing our boys home as soon as possible.

What the prime minister will also want to remind his party of - albeit in a non-triumphalist fashion - is the fact he has just led them to an historic, third consecutive election victory.

Whatever his detractors may believe, that is, after all, why they elected him 11 years ago.