September 29, 2003	Monday	Sha’aban 2, 1424

LONDON: Tony Blair has signalled his intention to plough on with his Iraq policy and with reforming Britain’s public services, thrusting aside criticism from within the Labour Party and from the wider public.

Shrugging off a string of negative opinion polls as indicators that “come and go”, Blair has even indicated he intends to seek a full third term in office when the country goes to the polls, probably in 2005.

The prime minister faces a turbulent party when he rises to address the annual congress on Tuesday. Many delegates are bitterly opposed to his stance at the side of US President George W. Bush over Iraq, which they see as selling out Labour’s pacifist heritage.

And many others are deeply sceptical of his pledge to press on with reforms to public services that envisage greater private sector involvement in hospitals and schools, as well as “top-up” fees for university tuition.

Blair faces antagonism from party activists and disquiet even among his allies at this his 10th congress as party leader. The gloss from two landslide victories — in 1997 and 2001 — has worn off, and many regard him as a leader who, never close to the grassroots, has now lost touch with the party’s base altogether.

There was always a Faustian element to the bargain between Blair and Labour — he pledged to turn the party into the natural party of government, but in return activists had to put aside their commitment to redistribution.

Now the signs are the activists believe Blair has gone too far in a quest for power without principle and want the party’s socialist soul back.

The judgement of the US magazine Newsweek that Blair is entering his twilight years in power has drawn considerable comment in Britain.

And comparisons are being drawn with Margaret Thatcher, for whom a third electoral victory was one term too many in office. The Conservative Party took its revenge and turfed her out. The same fate awaits Blair, with Iraq his nemesis, many are now saying.

Honing the 6,000 words of his hour-long speech, the dilemma facing a prime minister who is not to be deflected from his course is clear.

“The worst thing we could do at the moment is back off and back away. Whatever the battering you get, I actually feel more confident of our forward agenda. If we give up on that it would just be a catastrophic mistake,” he said in an interview published as the party faithful convened in picturesque Bournemouth.

But how to acknowledge the rift over Iraq without regretting the war, how to talk the language of fairness without using the tax system to enforce redistribution — these are the questions commentators favourable to Blair are asking.

When an adviser suggested he use his speech to “tickle the party’s tummy”, Blair wryly suggested: “Well, I could start with, ‘Comrades, speaking as a socialist...’”

Blair, scion of an upper middle-class Scottish legal family, has never been able to speak that kind of language, and the indications are he will stress fairness and future opportunity for the disadvantaged, rather than pledge any radical change in Britain’s skewed wealth distribution.

For the activists this is not enough. A poll published on the eve of congress found more than 40 per cent of Labour members want Blair to quit before the next election and nearly 60 per cent believe he was wrong to sanction military action against Iraq.

As the Conservatives were asking about Thatcher in 1990, so now Labour is searching its soul over the question: “Is our leader an electoral asset — or a liability?”—dpa