LONDON: Throughout their long and tempestuous partnership, it has been usual to see the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown (chancellor of exchequer) as a seesaw. When Blair is down, it must mean that Brown is up. When shares in Brown are being sold, it is time to buy stocks in Blair.

This playground metaphor is not just a confection by journalists trivially fixated with seeing all politics through a distorting lens of personality and ambition. This is the prism through which the two men have measured their relationship.

While the seesaw metaphor has been a useful one, it will not do for the stunning loss of the Dunfermline and West Fife by-election. This significant event was bad for both of them.

We routinely write about by-election results being a shock. This was a shocker for Labour in the literal sense of the word. No one, including the Lib Dems who spectacularly snatched the seat, predicted that it was going to happen.

For Labour to lose a safe seat less than a year into its third term adds to the growing foreboding among Labour MPs about the local elections in May and, beyond that, to the next general election. It cannot but add to the sense that dusk is gathering around Tony Blair.

Another striking indication of the fragility of the prime minister’s position is the empty seat around the cabinet table. One of the chairs has lacked an owner for more than a hundred days since the vacancy was created by the resignation of David Blunkett back in November. This is because Mr Blair wants to reconstruct his cabinet, but he does not feel secure enough to do any sacking at the moment. He recently confided to one colleague that he couldn’t have a reshuffle because he was too weak to risk it; he had to wait until he felt stronger. The by-election feeds into this mood that the prime minister’s authority is leeching away.

The difference on this occasion is that bad news for Blair is not good news for Brown. It has been repeatedly said that the by-election was in the chancellor’s backyard.

Actually, it is more like his living room. The chancellor’s Scottish home is in the seat. If he ever has a problem which needs the attention of his constituency MP, he will now have to ring a Lib Dem to help sort it out. The chancellor regards himself as the king of Scottish politics. His repeated interventions in the by-election were an investment of his personal political capital.

It is going too far to say that this was a referendum on Gordon Brown, but it has to be wounding. Worse, it raises the question that he most dreads: if he cannot secure a Labour victory in his native fiefdom, how attractive will Prime Minister Brown be to the rest of the United Kingdom? If he can’t woo them in Fife, what are his prospects of swinging it in southern England? That is the question you can already hear being raised by allies of the prime minister. This puts some perspective on the talk of a new understanding between the two men.

Yes, Mr Blair has been making an extra effort to sound warm about the prospect of being succeeded by Mr Brown. The prime minister has to do that if he is to get the chancellor’s vital support over the next few weeks. Yes, the chancellor has been offering his support. He feels he has to do so for fear that he will be depicted as an enemy of reform. Scratch that surface and you find seething resentment and distrust.

Private arguments have blazed between them over the schools reforms.

Their interpretations of the meaning of this by-election will be opposing. Among Blairites, this accentuates the fear that Gordon Brown is not the great vote winner that the chancellor and his admirers like to think. Among Brownites, this makes them even more convinced that their man must be moved urgently into Number 10 before it is too late to save the Labour party.

Everyone in government has been saying that they must learn the lesson of losing this by-election. The real trouble for them is that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown can’t agree on what the lesson is.—Dawn/The Observer News Service