LONDON: Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Britons to be calm and resolute after the second spate of bombings in London on Thursday, but further attacks may tarnish his image as a statesman which has won him praise. Mr Blair was lauded at home and abroad after bombs on London’s transport network killed more than 50 people two weeks ago.
But if Thursday’s fresh attacks, albeit smaller and taking no lives, turn out to be the start of a trend, the political flak could start to fly.
Even before the latest incidents, Mr Blair had been forced to fend off accusations that his backing for the Iraq invasion had made Britain a more dangerous place.
He did so again on Thursday after four small explosions hit London’s transport system, saying: “The roots of this are deep ... the terrorist attacks go back over 10 years.
“The people who are responsible for terrorist attacks are the terrorists.”
But an opinion poll this week showed most Britons thought their country was less safe as a result of Iraq.
A leaked document from British intelligence chiefs essentially said the same — that the terrorist threat had increased after the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
More attacks on home soil and some of that mud may stick.
“You get a period when everyone rallies around,” one member of Mr Blair’s Labour party said. “But you’ve seen the Iraq factor raised not long after the first bombs. It will happen again.”
MUTED OPPOSITION: But Mr Blair has sustained no political damage so far and his opponents have little choice but to support him, or look opportunistic.
And polls show that while he may not be liked by the public, the overwhelming majority still pick him as the leader they want in times of crisis.
London mayor Ken Livingstone, a strong opponent of the Iraq invasion, avoided criticizing the prime minister on Thursday.
“Those people whose memories stretch back to the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s will remember there were horrifying bombing campaigns in London,” he told a news conference.
“We got through that and we’ll get through this.”
Londoners — hardened by the Blitz of World War Two and a prolonged bombing campaign by the Irish Republican Army — are ill-disposed to fracturing in front of a terrorist threat.
Historically, attacks like these have united not divided.
“I am confident, having seen the way the emergency services and the public reacted, that they will continue to remain calm,” said Paul Wilkinson, terrorism expert at St Andrews University.
Furthermore, parliament went into recess on Thursday for a summer break, meaning the political machine that holds Mr Blair to account grinds to a halt for the best part of three months.
At the moment there are too many imponderables to accurately gauge the political fallout.
Will there be more attacks? Were Thursday’s devices laid by Al Qaeda militants or amateur copycats? Has British intelligence fundamentally failed?
Despite setting an end-date to his premiership – Mr Blair has said he will not fight a fourth election having won his third in May — the premier shows no sign of quitting the stage soon and is freed from the cares of winning public support again.
Finance minister Gordon Brown this week announced he had put back his next three-year public spending review until 2007.
That probably keeps Mr Brown, long Mr Blair’s heir apparent, at the Treasury for the next two years and more.
