Why Blair's retirement matters

Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political Correspondent, BBC News website

So is all the talk about Tony Blair's future and his rift with Gordon Brown just froth and nonsense got up by the media? And does it matter anyway?

Mr Blair has faced claims of a new rift with Mr Brown

For once, the answers are pretty straightforward - no, it is not all nonsense, it is happening. And yes, it really does matter who runs the country.

On the first, not even the prime minister or his closest and most senior allies are denying there is an issue here.

Tony Blair has described it as a "soap opera" - which, to the extent that it is full of drama and has been dragging on for years, is undoubtedly accurate.

But that does not make all the chatter and speculation untrue, unimportant or simply a media creation. Tony Blair and his ministers find it difficult to claim that.

Frontbencher Peter Hain has spoken of the "tensions" at the top while transport secretary Alistair Darling has attacked those involved in "harmful briefings".

That came after Blair loyalists Alan Milburn and Stephen Byers - branded the Blair "outriders" - criticised the chancellor's budget amid claims Mr Brown had used it to try and undermine the prime minister in May's local elections.

Big reforms

They are the tip of the iceberg. It is impossible to speak to any Labour MP without the question of exactly when Tony Blair will stand down being one of the first on their lips.

It has been raised during a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party and a number of Labour-supporting journals - notably the Guardian, the New Statesman and Tribune - have called for the prime minister to go sooner rather than later.

Alan Milburn has been dubbed 'an outrider' for Mr Blair

That is a direct result of the fact that Tony Blair pre-announced his retirement but has not, as yet, put a firm date on it.

It may not be to everyone's liking, but the chatter, briefings and plotting are happening and they are happening without any encouragement from the media - although that is not in short supply either.

Meanwhile, Whitehall is being increasingly driven by the prime minister's determination to get some big reforms completed before he goes. The departments of education, health and home affairs, in particular, are feeling the effects of that "legacy" drive.

And that is part of the answer to the question of whether any of this matters.

As the prime minister has said himself, what people are interested in is the things that are happening in their communities, in the health service for example, that affect their daily lives.

General election

That depends to a huge degree on who the prime minister is. That is, after all, to a large extent what elections are about.

Yet, thanks to the prime minister's announcement, the UK is to get a new prime minister without, presumably, a general election.

Charles Clarke says Mr Blair should stay until 2008

That will not be a unique event, Labour's Jim Callaghan and the Tories Alec Douglas-Home and John Major all entered Downing Street without fighting general elections.

But it cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the direction the country takes in future.

Policies which affect every citizen in the country are created in Downing Street and, in an increasingly presidential age, by the prime minister himself.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown may have significantly different proposals on pensions or the health service, for example, so it could not matter more which of them ends up having the power to put them into practice.

The debate over whether prime minister Brown would be more left-wing, or "Old" Labour, than prime minister Blair is also a significant one.

Plough on

Similarly, if the sitting prime minister is seen as being on the way out, ministers and backbenchers have little incentive to support him and may well switch allegiances, albeit quietly, to the man they see waiting in the wings.

And that too affects how policy is made. Just look at recent backbench rebellions and concessions on a series of policies for evidence of that.

For the moment, the prime minister's answer to all this is to plough on regardless, suggesting he has a long list of business he is determined to finish before leaving office.

Supporters, such as Home Secretary Charles Clarke, meanwhile are suggesting 2008 is the likely timetable for a handover to Gordon Brown.

And it is quite likely the prime minister is happy with those suggestions, even if he is not actually encouraging them.

But what is absolutely certain is that the speculation over the precise timetable for his retirement is not going to go away and cannot be dismissed as irrelevant to the running of the country.

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