SPECTM
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TONY THE LONELY
It seems likely that Tony and Cherie went to bed on Tuesday night, in common with most other observers in this country, after Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois had all 'declared' for Al Gore. One imag- ines that there was a friskiness about them as they scampered upstairs, a lightness in the heart. It is not just the symbolism that matters in the Democrat–Labour align- ment, or the old wives' tale that there is a symmetry between Republican victories in Washington, and Conservative victories in London. For the past eight years there has been a growing skein of connections between Tony and Bill, and their respective teams. It began with Jonathan Powell, the No. 10 chief of staff, who made his number with Clinton and Sidney Blumenthal, Clin- ton's aide, while Powell was posted to the UK's Washington embassy. The relation- ship has since blossomed into a mutual admiration society of sometimes embar- rassing intensity. When Tony is in difficulties over North- ern Ireland, Clinton can be relied on to fly in and announce how Irish he feels, on one occasion breaking the ice with Sinn Fein by shaking hands with Gerry Adams. And when Bill was embroiled with Monica Lewinsky, it was Tony, alone of all the Western leaders, who hastened to the side of his stricken counterpart, and buoyed him up. They were Achilles and Patroclus, David and Jonathan, Batman and Robin, Wallace and Gromit. If Blair had a slightly better command of the moral fervour, Clin- ton had the peerless political brain. It was Clinton, whose 1992 victory preceded Blair's by five years, who really pioneered the distinctive features of Blairism: the broad endorsement of market capitalism, combined with an overt and shameless abil- ity to feel your pain. Indeed, some students of physiognomy have noted that Blair eerily mimics Clinton's most distinctive facial expression, the slight thrusting forward of the lower jaw, pushing out the underlip and puckering the chin, which seems intended to convey a kind of mock humility.
So when Tony and Cherie and the rest of us called it a day on Tuesday, the outcome showed every sign of being wholly satisfac- tory for the Labour party, and for the Democrats. It is with some pleasure, therefore, that one imagines their shock the following morning. Not Bush! One can almost hear the squawk in the Downing Street bed- room; as Cherie turned on the Today pro- gramme. Not that bumbling, buzzard-faced right-winger, she (almost certainly) splut- tered. One can imagine how outlandish Mr Bush must seem to New Labour, with his Reaganesque commitment to cutting taxes and easing the burden on middle-income groups, in a country that already enjoys much lower levels of tax than this one does. Then, more baffling still from the point of view of New Labour Euro-federalists, there is Mr Bush's sympathy for some attempt to end the pointless division of the West into competing trade blocs, perhaps by allowing Britain dual citizenship of the EU and Nafta. It is doubtful that the Prime Minis- ter allowed himself to use profane language as the startling news was announced from Florida, but there is likely to have been a low whistle, or a groan.
Now there would be no chance to build on that exciting Anglo-US eco-alliance, which Al Gore had broached earlier this week in the Mirror. Now that Al and Tipper had lost, there would be no prospect of replicating that uber-yuppie foursome that had once danced at the White House to the songs of Elton John: Bill and Cherie, Tony and Hillary — a sight that had once moved Tina Brown to an ecstasy of approval. It would all be very different with Bush, the Prime Minister sighed, as he put on his slip- pers. No more touchy-feely seminars in New York, with wonkish discussions of communitarianism. What price the New World Order, he whimpered, now that the Republicans were in the White House?
Bush has already made some perplexing noises about the need to withdraw Ameri- can troops from Kosovo. It is not clear that this is consistent with the commitment of Bill and Tony and, putatively, Al to pay any price, bear any burden, in pursuit of the Clinton–Blair 'ethical foreign policy'. With Bush in the White House, there is not the ghost of a chance that the Americans will sign up for the International Court of Jus- tice in The Hague. What hope now for the great human-rights imperium, supported by those four progressive lawyers: Tony, Cherie, Bill, Hillary?
And then, the Prime Minister shuddered to himself, there was the Tory triumphal- ism. Of course it is absurd to read across too much, from Washington to London. But perhaps the Bush victory did show that you can still win from the moderate, com- passionate centre-right; perhaps, after all, people were interested in social security reform and cuts in taxation.
At last it hit him, the worst bit of all: with Clinton going, and no Gore to succeed, he was the sole custodian of what had once been their wonderful joint ideology: the Third Way! Oh, what did it mean? he wailed; and now there was no one to tell him.
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