In a comment below, Walter asks what I think about possible replacements for Blair and the future of the Tories. I've been reluctant to blog about the problems besetting the Tories, since I don't really see a clear way out for them at the moment. As long as Blair remains entrenched in the center ground of politics and keeps the economy going, the Tories are going to remain locked into their inward-looking battles. Blair would need to screw up in a big way for the Tories to profit from it in their current state.

There are two possible scenarios for Blair's departure: he either loses the next general election, or he is deposed by the Labour party before then. The latter scenario is very unlikely unless things get completely out of hand. The first could happen if things get somewhat out of hand (quite possible) and the Tories can put up a halfway coherent front (not very likely). They need to figure out what they really stand for in order to do that. The internecine warfare in the Conservative Party and the policy paralysis is Blair's biggest asset. The fatal blow to the Tories came when Britain was forced out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1992. The ERM was the precursor to European Monetary Union, and Britain had joined the ERM in the Thatcher years despite serious misgivings by the Iron Lady herself. Membership of the ERM became the linchpin of economic policy, and when the ERM peg proved unsustainable (it was causing grave damage to the British economy; this is why EMU can still fail), the Tories' reputation for economic competence was lost. They have not been able to regain it ever since, mostly because they've not managed to agree on what they stand for. The old conflict between authoritarians and libertarians has been flaring up with neither side able to score a decisive victory, or finding a way of building a consensus within which both wings of the party can live. Actually, the situation is even more complex than this, with some "modernizers" advocating a shift to the middle ground. Rather being skeptical of the welfare state, their pitch is that the Tories should return to their role as better guardians of the welfare state that they had in much of the post-war era. Perhaps a better way of describing the factions is to call them "christian democrats" (in the continental European mold) and "anglo-saxon conservatives." The cross-currents are many. There also used to be a big divide on European policy, but most of the pro-Europeans have either retired or become marginalized. At least that aspect of the civil war seems to have been settled. But as long as the Tories can't figure out whether they're in favor of a socialist welfare state or not, they're not going to be able to stage a revival. Once they've figured that out, they could start to build policies on that. A message of lower taxes and a more consumer-friendly attitude at currently state-run (and failing) services is the basis on which the Tories should be able to win back ground. But the message has to be consisent, persuasive and above all, not shrill. The tone of Conservatives has been one of their big problems. They need to learn the craft of Opposition. In any case, it would require a major disaster on Labour's part to hand the initiative back to the Tories.

In the current dispute with the firemen, Blair knows he has to defeat the strikers or he's toast. The economic problems for Britain are mounting, but they are not as dire as those in Germany for instance. Higher taxes and more red tape are going slow the economy down, but perhaps it's not going to get bad enough for the blame to stick to him yet. A weak global economic environment is a great excuse. So he has time and should be able to win the next election too. I think he'll survive for a while yet. If he does get replaced, it's almost certainly going to mean a return to the left for Labour. Gordon Brown is a likely candidate, but that will only work if the economy is still doing well.