Blair & Brown

Across the pond, the second of half of the George "Walker Texas Ranger" Bush and Tony "I Want to give a Churchill speech" Blair duo has been having some trouble. While Iraq has been causing both men a lot of grief the greater part of the misfortune has fallen on Blair. There are many reasons for this. Blair has made some of the most dramatic statements on Saddam's reputed weapons of WMD capabilities, his country (and for that matter his party) never fully supported his march to battle and most importantly the British public has been very aggressive in it's criticism of unsubstantiated weapons claims. Of course the WMD debacle is in some sense an old story that both Blair and Bush have weathered a fair amount of success. One need look no further than Bush's defeat of John Kerry and Blair's continuing hold on power. This leads me to the recent flair up between Blair and Gordon Brown, who as Chancellor of The Exchequer the second most powerful man in the Labor government.

Put most bluntly, the issue is power; namely when will Blair step aside and allow Brown to take his place? According to the commonly accepted story their conflict dates back to 1995 when Blair out- maneuvered Brown for leadership of the Labor party. Apparently, Blair and Brown held a summit in an upscale London restaurant in which Blair vowed that Brown would have control over economic policy in the incoming labor government and that after two terms Blair would step aside and endorse Brown as his successor. Needless to say, this arraignment has produced much tension and political jockeying since 1997 and the election of Labor. This rivalry has only been intensified by Blair's intention to seek a third term as Prime Minister, leaving Brown in the lurch and causing such public spectacles as the two holding simultaneous press conferences on African Poverty.

I take an interest in this, not only because I have an unnatural curiosity concerning British politics, but also because of Blair's role in Iraq. While the war has never been named as an issue between Blair and Brown and, of course, as a senoir minister Brown professed support for the government's policy, he was never a key player in the promotion and execution of the Iraq invasion. This makes me root for a Brown takeover. While their dispute is not directly related to Iraq, who can have any doubt that Blair's fanaticism on the issue has helped lead to his sinking popularity in Britain. While no one can predict what Brown's potential Iraq policy would be we do know who got Britain there in the first place and for that Blair should fall.