"Lucky" Blair lives to fight another day

Prime Minister Tony Blair long ago lost the youthful optimism of his first runaway election victory, yet survival of a rollercoaster week shows he still knows how to ride his luck.

"He's an extraordinarily fortunate prime minister. Maybe it's because he prays a lot!" said analyst Anthony Seldon after Mr Blair's knife-edge victory in a key parliamentary vote and exoneration by a judge probing the suicide of an Iraq expert.

Mr Blair has confounded doom-mongers who predicted the twin threats converging this week, in a crazy 24 hours of high political drama, could have toppled him.

But he will need plenty more political luck - or divine help - to face a future fraught with problems as his ruling Labour Party rebels against his social reform policies and Britons stay dubious over his reasons for the Iraq war.

He also has the brooding presence of his powerful finance minister and rumoured rival Gordon Brown to contend with.

Mr Brown helped Mr Blair scrape through Tuesday evening's education vote by just five "ayes", but some think that just cleverly enhanced his credentials to take over from the boss.

The embarrassing reduction of Mr Blair's 161-seat parliamentary majority, in the most serious revolt he has faced to a core domestic policy, has thrown into doubt his entire social reform policy, which Labour traditionalists see as too free-market.

Further readings of the education bill, plus upcoming legislation on asylum and parliamentary reform, are now in doubt as Mr Blair will be forced to consult rebels more closely.

On the Iraq issues bedevilling him for more than a year, a judge cleared Mr Blair yesterday of blame for the suicide of weapons expert David Kelly in a report that could have sunk him had the prime minister been personally censured.

But the wider issue of Britons' distrust with Mr Blair's case for war, and particularly his allegations over Saddam Hussein's banned weapons, remains an open political sore. With none of the banned weapons Mr Blair claimed Saddam had primed for use yet found, many in his war-wary party will never forgive him for convincing them military action was necessary.

"The prime minister led us into a complete disaster. He is either a fool or a knave, either incompetent or a liar - and who is being hanged today? The BBC and Andrew Gilligan," anti-war legislator George Galloway said.

While judge Lord Hutton cleared Mr Blair, he strongly rapped the BBC and its reporter Mr Gilligan for their role in the Kelly affair.

Mr Blair, looking feisty and relieved in parliament, said Hutton's report vindicated him and proved accusations that he had misled the nation and parliament were "the real lie".

But his principal accuser, opposition Conservative leader Michael Howard, said the saga over Mr Kelly's suicide - apparently unable to cope with the pressure and depressed by the outing of his name - reflected badly on Mr Blair.

"The nation will in due course deliver its verdict," he said, referring to the next general election expected in 2005.

Most analysts expect Mr Blair to win that, but not with the same unassailable lead as in the past. And the jury is out on whether this week's survival act will ultimately strengthen Mr Blair or make him, in his foes' words, a "dead man walking".

"Blood has been let and anger has been satisfied," Mr Seldon said. "It could be the opportunity for a big new reorientation and relaunching of the second term. Or it could turn out to be the turning point in the second term where the party has shown that they're simply not going to buy his agenda."