The editorial writers of The Wall Street Journal love Tony Blair. That alone should tell you all you need to know about just how far the grinning PM has moved his Labour Party, how close his career is now linked with that of President George Bush, how absurd the once-proud Tories have become, and how muddled Britannia's political domain is on the eve of Parliamentary elections.
The Stalwart Briton is the monicker the WSJ's righties place on Blair, awarding laurels worthy of conservative icons like Thatcher and Churchill. In endorsing his candidacy for an all-but-assured third term, the Journal lauds his "willingness to stand on principle when world events have demanded it." [They do ding him slightly on domestic issues: "He claims to be a Thatcherite but has presided over a policy of regulatory creep and steadily rising taxes and spending." But so what, he followed Bush into war.]
This is fascinating, especially given the analysis on the same page of today's Journal by Geoffrey Wheatcroft, author of The Strange Death of Tory England. Wheatcroft is clearly a fan of Conservative domination, of the protection of the realm, and of Margaret Thatcher. So his dismembering of current Tory leader David Howard is stunning:
Under his leadership the Tories have fought a remarkably brutal campaign, which may also have been misguided. They have denounced gypsies, foreigners and criminals, and attacked Mr. Blair in such personal terms as have rarely been heard before in British politics. Mr. Howard has warned of hordes of immigrants coming here "for nefarious purposes." The Tories have asked "How would you feel if a bloke on early release attacked your daughter?" and have said of Mr. Blair, "If he's prepared to tell lies to take us to war he's prepared to lie to win an election."
Not only has this distressed gentler souls in the party, it hasn't worked. There is some evidence that the bare-knuckle coarseness of the Tory campaign has actually backfired by alienating as many anticollectivist but socially liberal middle-class voters as it has picked up embittered nativists. At the same time, Mr. Howard has been notably chary about fresh thinking from within his party, and there is a telling comparison between the fate of two pairs of Conservative parliamentary candidates.
One Tory faked a photograph to show himself attacking asylum seekers, while another runs on the slogan "What part of 'Send them back' don't you understand, Mr. Blair?" Neither of those suffered more than a mild rebuke from Mr. Howard. On the other hand, he behaved in well-nigh Stalinist fashion when it came to ejecting two others from the party: Howard Flight, an MP and successful businessman, standing again in Sussex; and Danny Kruger, a smart young journalist who was quixotically standing against Mr. Blair himself in his Durham seat (cutting your teeth in a hopeless constituency is a rite of passage for budding British politicians).
This from a Conservative supporter? Blair has, from all accounts, a rock-solid hold on the center, even as Britons turn out in smaller, less enthusiastic numbers. Play around with the BBC's nifty seat calculator and swing-o-meter, and you can see just how solid the Labour Party's hold on government remains, despite the nativist attacks from Tories and the heel-nipping by disaffected lefties among the third party Liberal Democrats.
And yet, I think there are hints of something else afoot - the rare shifting toward alignment of long-alienated common interest perhaps? Anti-war opinion runs fairly deep in Britain, from outright opposition down to the most lukewarm of pro forma support for Blair among Labourites. Certainly, the peace factions among non-reactionary Tories and Lib-Dems, coupled with angry lifetime Labour members, creates one potential alliance. Says Wheatcroft: "... among old-fashioned instinctive Tories there is also a deep sense of anger - memorably expressed by George MacDonald Fraser, author of the Flashman novels and a World War II infantryman - at what seems to them a needless, foolish and morally dubious war."
But here's another - one based on civil liberties. Blair famously proclaimed the need to put safety before liberty, but he also touched a nerve within some in his own party. He narrowly won a vote on more stringent security measures - Britain's Patriot Act - and many MP's in the majority switched sides. There's a growing sense in the the UK that the security pendulum has swung too far. And there are natural allies among some in Labour, some on the left, and many libertarian free market Tory types. This coalition is ill-formed and sketchy at present, but perhaps it will show itself tomorrow in a more narrow Blairite majority. We'll see; I've long thought this impulse might unite elements of the left, right, and center in the United States.
Tomorrow's vote should be interesting, in any case; certainly to see how George Bush's most stalwart ally fares in judgement by his countrymen. And to see how the cloudy picture sharpens. As Simon Jenkins said in the Times of London - paraphrased by the Times of New York - "if you want a Conservative government vote Labor, if you want a Labor government vote Liberal Democrat, and if you want a Liberal government vote Conservative."
UPDATE: Exit polls show Blair and Labour retaining only a 66-seat majority in the House of Commons, described by Kos (who was in the U.K. blogging) as "brutal results for Blair." Still, no real gains for the Lib-Dems and a pick-up for the Tories.