Sometime this spring, Prime Minister Tony Blair is expected to make the short journey from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace to ask Queen Elizabeth II to dissolve Parliament, thus triggering a general election. Eight years after winning power in one of Britain's greatest electoral landslides of the 20th century, Blair's Labour government is headed for an unprecedented third term in office, with another landslide parliamentary
majority, the pundits confidently predict.
The main reason for this confidence is the supposed weakness of the Conservatives, the principal opposition party. At 33 percent, the party's poll rating at the beginning of the year was only 2 points higher than its share of the vote in 1997 and only 1 point above its vote in 2001, when Labour was re-elected with a parliamentary majority of 165.
But Blair's government should take some credit, too. The prime minister has proven -- somewhat to the consternation of his critics on the left -- that a progressive government can deliver economic stability and a business-friendly environment, while also sharply reducing unemployment, cutting poverty, and investing heavily in public services.
Domestically, Blair has also been willing to make tough decisions: recognizing, for instance, that the expansion of university education would require radical reform of student funding and that investment in public services would have to be matched by a
large-scale shake-up in their delivery. Like Bill Clinton, moreover, Blair has a certain resilience and steely determination, especially when under pressure. The result: Having dipped sharply last year, his approval ratings have now begun to rise again.
However, whether Labour gets the third landslide the polls are pointing to may depend very much on the fallout from Iraq. That is what gives Labour politicians the most jitters,
and potentially offers the Tories (despite their support for the conflict) their best hope of sharply reducing Blair's majority in the House of Commons. For, although opposition
to the war was never as strong in Britain as in most other European countries, the decision to go to war and its aftermath have sharply divided the nation.
January's elections in Iraq may prove to be a turning point. But Blair's reputation
has been badly damaged by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. That has caused many voters to conclude that the prime minister misled the country about his reasons for entering the conflict.
Iraq threatens to rupture the informal anti-Conservative coalition that delivered Labour's landslides in the last two elections. These landslides were, in large part, built on Labour's advantage in the marginal (or "swing") seats -- which will again determine the outcome of the election. In 1997 and 2001, Labour secured a massive advantage in these seats.
Labour's big concern now is that its advantage in the marginal seats will melt away in the heat of the conflict over Iraq. London political buzz has it that the Labour Party's private polls indicate that around 3 million voters -- most of them middle-class professionals
-- have turned against the party because of the war. Such voters supported Labour in the last two elections, but they may abandon the party and vote instead for the anti-war
Liberal Democrats, even for seats the Liberals have no hope of winning.
If the center-left vote splinters, the Conservatives could come through the middle and pick up dozens of constituencies without actually winning any more votes than they secured in the last general election. The Liberal leader, Charles Kennedy, is going hard after these voters: The party's advertisements last year commonly featured pictures of
Tony Blair with George W. Bush -- an electoral kiss of death. Could Kennedy thus become the Ralph Nader of the British general election, a spoiler without a chance?
In a small number of constituencies, Kennedy's anti-war stance may allow his party to take seats from Labour. This has already occurred in the only two parliamentary by-elections Labour has lost since it came to power. Both seats have large Muslim
populations (this is true, as well, in a seat in Birmingham, Britain's second-largest
city, which Labour narrowly held in a by-election last summer).
In 2001, it was estimated that nearly three-quarters of Muslims backed Labour; today, polls indicate Muslim support for the party hovering just above 30 percent. Muslim support has transferred to the Liberal Democrats. Although the Muslim vote is not large,
it is concentrated in a number of previously safe inner-city Labour seats.
If, in addition to the party losing anti-war votes to the Liberal Democrats, some disaffected Labour supporters decide to give Tony Blair a bloody nose by staying away from the polls, Blair's government could be in difficulty. Indeed, turnout could make a dramatic difference. Polls at the end of 2004 gave the Tories a lead of 1 percentage point if turnout were 50 percent, whereas Labour led by 8 points if turnout were 80 percent. In 2001, turnout dropped by more than 10 points, to just under 60 percent.
The prime minister's main headache may, in fact, begin after polling day. With a current majority of 160, Labour could lose a large number of seats and still be comfortably reelected. However, big losses in marginal seats (especially if Blair's stance on Iraq is seen to have caused them) will affect his ability to deliver the "unremittingly New Labour" third term he is promising.
In his first two terms, thanks to the sheer size of his majority, the prime minister has been able to push ahead with some of his more controversial Third-Way reforms -- despite the opposition of Labour's left.
Blair's problem is that Labour's most marginal seats -- and thus those most likely to be lost -- tend to be represented by "New Labour" MPs most loyal to the prime minister. Many of these MPs, unlike their colleagues in safer, "heartland" Labour seats, represent
the kind of "Middle England" constituencies that found Blair's modernization of the party most attractive. Many of them, though, have learned that the Iraq war was much more controversial among their voters than those in safer Labour seats.
Some of the biggest rebellions against the government by Labour MPs -- on university funding reform and the creation of semi-independent "foundation hospitals," as well as on the war -- came disproportionately from safe Labour seats.
Blair, however, is attempting to counter such a scenario by making clear -- and thus seeking a mandate for -- a continuing commitment to the New Labour approach. Attempting to shift the focus from Iraq, the prime minister is vowing to press on
with his reforms to the public services if Labour is re-elected. He is pledging to extend choice and place the individual citizen -- patient, parent, or pupil -- at the heart of each
service Capitalizing on Labour's strong economic record, Blair is also attempting to show voters the connection between his public service reforms and the country's individual
and national prosperity.
Having already announced that if Labour is re-elected, he will serve a full third term but not seek a fourth, the prime minister's gamble is clear. If, as he believes, the New Labour message has sufficient appeal to deliver his party another landslide victory, he will
have won the opportunity to step up the pace of reform in his remaining time on Downing Street. For Blair, simply winning isn't enough.
