Editorial

Tony Blair finds himself at another crossroads. One of many that he has faced in this, his annus horribilis. Having ignored so many red lights over the past period it is difficult to see this singularly errant driver significantly changing direction now. Nevertheless, it is worth considering the juggernaut of opposition driving steadily towards him.

The much hoped for honeymoon over Iraq has not materialised. True, the cynical appeal to "support the troops" gave No 10 brief respite from the avalanche of opposition to the war from within the Party and the wider public. Yet the difficult questions have not gone away.

We now know that when the Prime Minister presented his case for war, just days before the invasion of Iraq, only the thinnest tier of the government and secret services supported his key justifications. This was kept from Labour MPs.

Instead of an honest assessment of the risks, MPs were offered a `multiple choice' of reasons to support the Bush War - Weapons of Mass Destruction (now reduced to the search for evidence of weapons programs); the fight against international terrorism (a whole new `terrorist front' has been opened up in Iraq); the Road Map for Middle East peace (the UK could not even bring itself to vote for a UN motion condemning Israeli plans to expel or assassinate President Arafat). Only the Labour MPs who chose `none of the above' have emerged with any credit.

`Trust' has become the articulation of the widespread disquiet over Iraq. The British public are simply not convinced over the Prime Minister's means or his ends. And they are right.

On the general policy front, even New Labour's key think tanks are in revolt. The Compass initiative, bringing together as it does so many friends of New Labour, strikes at the very heart of Blair's project.

Put simply, Compass calls for a return of a Social Democratic Labour Party. Their manifesto explicitly condemns the neo-liberal agenda with its attendant policies; unfair international trade terms; overseas adventurism and domestic privatisation.

Calling for the taming of the markets and the management of capitalism for the many not the few would not have been a radical demand a decade ago. Now it amounts to an explicit rejection of the Blairite project. Though Compass might disdain such historical comparisons, it broadly represents a return to the traditions of Gaitskell, Crossland and latterly Hattersley. It is also a manifesto which might conceivably be adopted by leader-in-waiting Gordon Brown, though his greater appetite for redistribution would have to be married with far more interventionist policy if Compass' manifesto were to be effectively realised.

Unsuprisingly, theirs is explicitly not a socialist manifesto. There is no real argument for, or even aspiration towards, democratising the economy, with wider participation and empowerment being treated as largely consumer issues. Trade Unions are barely mentioned, public ownership is assumed to refer only to that which we currently own and alternative forms of ownership are to be protected rather than extended. Nevertheless the progress implicit in the Compass prescription should be welcomed by the Left.

It will not be welcomed by Tony Blair. Now, added to the strategy of `restoring public trust' is the need to placate the Party internally. Cosmetic measures will not do.

In the short-term only a genuine change of direction can save Blair's leadership and in the longer term an even more fundamental change is needed if Labour's governance of Britain is to continue.