Tony Blair’s Gameplan

I’m been fascinated by watching the British PM Tony Blair’s handling of the current Iraq situation. Blair, who came to power as the sophisticated British version Bill Clinton, is leader of the left-of-center (read softcore-socialist) UK Labour party, and an avowed internationalist. Hardly the kind of European leader you’d expect to be backing Bush’s war on Iraq.

But Blair has consistently been standing “shoulder to shoulder” (in Blair’s own words) with the American President since day one of the Terror War. Bush’s speeches have been good when they’ve counted (SOTU, the 9-11 aniversary, the UN speech), but on the whole, his public speaking skills suck the king-sized Popsicle. Blair, on the other hand, has used his polished speaking skills to cheerlead the Terror War to the world. He’s sent British troops to Afghanistan, and has practically signed up for the coming Iraqi campaign. But why?

A September 7 DailyPundit post briefly answers this question. But while I agree that Blair’s support for Bush is based on a gut-level moral calculus and rational threat assesment, I’m still left wondering why he’s be so vocal in his support. The reason I write about this on today in particular, is this Reuters story, discussing a poll commissioned by the UK Guardian. The interesting bits are as follows:

The Guardian/ICM poll, distilled from telephone interviews of 1,000 adults between September 20 and 22, shows that support for Labor -- which has won two consecutive electoral landslide victories in 1997 and 2001 -- at just 39 percent.
...
The poll showed that disapproval of a military attack on Iraq -- which dipped to 40 percent from 50 immediately after the first anniversary commemorations of the September 11 kamikaze attacks on the United States -- had climbed back to 46 percent.
...
It also showed 65 percent approval of an attack on Baghdad if there was sufficient proof that Saddam had developed new mass killing capabilities.

Now, while I’m always doubtful of polls, especially ones coming from organizations as, shall we say, editorially opinionated, as the Guardian, this one has some interesting numbers. While the Labour support numbers could easily be spun to reflect poorly on Blair’s leadership of the party, but the numbers on support for an attack (which when you use the positive instead of negative comes out to be 55%) seems to suggest that he’s doing the more popular thing.

The Reuters story lacks two key pieces of information which I think are critical to understanding the current political environment in Britain: support levels for the other parties, and Mr. Blair’s personal approval levels.

Is Blair out-hawking the Torys? With the majority of his nation’s population supporting action against Hussein (at least according to this poll), is Blair positioning himself to capitalize on the more hawkish center? I’m no expert on the British electorate, but in any group of voters I’ve ever studied, both historically and modern, there’s a similar breakdown:

• 25% will be die-hard rightists, and 25% die-hard leftists, who will vote for their side, come hell or high water. The definition of right or left will depend on the era and society, but the numbers are always the same. These people are completely marginalized in two party systems like the US, and mostly marginalized in quasi two-party systems like the UK, as their votes can be taken completely for granted.
• 25-35% will be moderate, but definitely lean to one side or the other. They’ll get some attention from the politicos they support, especially if it’s a tight election.
• 15-25% will be completely unaffiliated. These are the folks who swing elections one way or the other, and the reason why most stable democracies retain relatively centrist governments.

Now, I think it’s safe to say that a good number of the 39% who currently support Labour will vote Labour no matter what Blair does (Hell, half of these folks still probably get all misty-eyed at hearing the L'Internationale). It’s like the black or union vote for the Dems here in the US. But 65% of the general population will support war if Blair can provide more evidence of Saddam’s dangerous WMD capabilities (which we’re just beginning to hear about now). That 65%, me thinks, is bound to have a good number of those swing voters I mentioned earlier. And those are the very people who brought New Labour to power in the 90’s.

With the exceptions of Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford, it takes both political savvy and intelligence to become a President or Prime Minister of a major nation. While some have doubted Bush’s capability in either area, I think he’s proven those critics consistently wrong. However, I don’t know of anyone who’s doubted Blair on either. I think the British PM not only shows fine statesmanship and idealistic consistency in supporting Bush in the current war, but is playing a mighty fine game of domestic politics while he’s at it.

By supporting the war, Blair can once again guide his party to popular victory, while cutting off any Conservative inroads that a war could bring. The only challenge I see to this tactic is the raw offensiveness of many of his subordinates and fellows within the Labor-left. While providing Fisking material for so many bloggers, I can’t see how these people can help Blair’s attempts to dominate the middle ground of the UK’s political spectrum.

 

Posted by Captain Mojo at September 24, 2002 01:25 AM | TrackBack