Labour's Taliban tendency

摘要

Tony Blair's aides reckon that the prime minister nowadays spends about 50% of his working hours dealing with one aspeet or other of the war against terrorism. It is doing him no visible harm. In mid-October, says MORI, Labour's lead over the Conservatives in the opinion polls was, at 32%, higher than at any time since just after it first came to power in 1997. But here is a thought-experiment. If there were no war, or if Mr Blair had chosen not to play such a big part in it, what would British newspapers now be writing about? They might well be full of tales of sleaze, arrogance and control freakery, just as they were at the end of 1999 and for much of 2000.