LONDON: Tony Blair could be at war in Iraq next year and may take on a sceptical British public over joining the euro — but even those minefields hold few risks while his Conservative opponents focus on infighting.

Blair has endured a year that reads likes the plot of a political disaster movie but is unscathed despite a catalogue of errors which would have sunk previous prime ministers.

Fortunately for him, the Conservatives show no signs of an early improvement in their fortunes.

“If they ever got their act together, I shudder to think what might happen,” one senior MP from Blair’s Labour Party said. “But you can’t lose if you are the only team on the park.”

Current polls would give Labour an election victory to dwarf their previous two landslides.

Blair has lost two key ministers this year, he has admitted transport policy is a shambles and this week told Britons to work longer and save harder or live their old age in poverty.

Schools and hospitals are slow to improve and the government has been forced to concede the economy, its crown jewel, is not performing up to expectations as taxes are poised to rise.

Trade unions are flexing their muscles, threatening strikes on a scale that brought down the last Labour government in 1979.

Add to that the scandal of his wife’s links with a convicted conman and the premier should be at the end of his tether. He may be. But he still reigns supreme.

An ICM poll this week gave Labour 41 per cent support while its hapless Conservative opponents — who governed for most of the last century — dropped to 27 per cent, a four-year low.

There are, however, real threats to Blair in 2003.

A war in Iraq would be hugely damaging if not won quickly and with few casualties. ICM said 44 per cent of Britons oppose an attack on Saddam Hussein while only 36 per cent are in favour.

And the great euro debate is a double-edged sword.

Blair can no longer duck a decision — he has promised to judge the economic case for joining by next June and offer the public a referendum if that case is made.

Polls show a big majority of Britons want to keep the pound, so Blair could lose his first key vote ever and offer the anti-euro Conservatives a road to recovery. But if he runs away from the challenge he will look weak, while his European partners will view him as an increasingly semi-detached ally.

John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, said that if Blair fought on the euro and lost, if an Iraq campaign became protracted and messy and if the Conservatives came up with a convincing prescription for public services then British politics could again become interesting.

“But if none of those things happens, it probably won’t be,” he said.

DUNCAN SMITH FOR CHOP?: Instead, it is Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith who is looking over his shoulder.