A matter of trust

Tony Blair came in with a bang. But he has gone with something of a whimper. Most Britons seem relieved that he has gone, and many think he stayed at least a year too long. His record will inevitably be compared with that of Margaret Thatcher, the only other prime minister in post-imperial Britain to serve for a decade. Mr Blair, for all his telegenic quality and felicity with the language, comes out poorly in the comparison. Mrs Thatcher pushed Britain in an altogether new direction, whereas Mr Blair's record is more mixed. He has the Irish settlement, greater devolution and successful economic management to show for his years, but also the fatal mistake of Iraq. He delivered less on improving public services (mainly health and education) than he had promised. And he has a record of spin, sleaze, and a barefaced endorsement of arms deal bribery, as with British Aerospace's dealings with Saudi Arabia.

Ten years is a long time to be prime minister of any country and still emerge unscathed. A British prime minister has an additional cross to bear, namely, the Special Relationship with the US. Sometimes he or she has to choose between the support and the esteem of the British people and the Special Relationship. Tony the Phony, as he came to be known after the true reasons for taking his country into Iraq transpired, chose Uncle Sam. It cost him his reputation as a decent man. In the end, despite his achievements, he will be seen as a politician who betrayed the trust of his people and who could not be believed. History has a way of being cruel to those who enter in a blaze of glory and with drumbeats.

His successor, Gordon Brown, after a rather long wait, has slipped quietly from 11 Downing Street to No 10. He was, if you will, Dravid to Blair's Ganguly, the hard-working grafter who no one notices till he has scrambled across for the single that fetches him his century. In that sense, the world can expect Britain to acquire a lower profile in international affairs""which may not be a bad thing since the country has been boxing above its weight. As finance minister, he ran Britain's finances quite well. His greatest achievement, however, came very early, in 1997, when he allowed the Bank of England total freedom in determining monetary policy. For a politician, that too from the Labour party, that showed a rare understanding of the way in which globalisation had changed the financial world. In a sense, he decided that he was not going to be the boy who stuck his finger into the dyke. There was, of course, a collateral political reason as well, namely, to deflect the unions from blaming the government for what was to come. But whatever the reasons, the move worked wonderfully and made the UK a good place for investors to place their bets.

Mr Brown has three years to go as prime minister before the next general election is due. His first challenge (or problem) is going to be preserving the Special Relationship while pulling out of Iraq, as most of his countrymen want him to do. His second will be to show that he can be a good leader as No 1, after being a good but impatient No 2. And his third will be to win back the public trust that Mr Blair had lost.