Britain - The semi-detatched Prime Minister looks to his future by Peter Riddell
Being Prime Minister is both different and difficult. That was Tony Blair’s message at his news conference yesterday, to human rights campaigners and to dissenting Labour MPs. He is now in an unusual limbo: between being a party leader with an eye on the next election and a not-quite-retired prime minister with an eye on his historical reputation. Mr Blair was robust on the deportation of suspects to their home countries, such as Jordan, Egypt, Libya and Algeria. Britain has been seeking memorandums of understanding that they will not be tortured, but this has been denounced by civil rights groups. The risk is of a stalemate where the suspects cannot be deported or successfully prosecuted in this country, even though they are seen as potentially dangerous. “I don’t see why we should not be able to deport people from this country who are nationals but have come here to cause trouble.” For Mr Blair, the argument is the wrong way round, ignoring the threat from terrorism. This sense of semi-detachment from the everyday party battle has made Mr Blair’s recent public remarks fascinating. If not yet in a valedictory mood, he has adopted a reflective tone, standing back to look at how problems appear from a prime minister’s perspective, as in his Oxford speech last month on Britain’s relations with the EU. All this is almost a trailer for his memoirs, without the personal bits.
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