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Friday 9 May 2008

Politics

The last act of a desperate Prime Minister — to bring back the Hunting Bill

The vexatious trip to visit George Bush is by no means the greatest of Tony Blair’s troubles. This May and June now loom ahead like an obstacle course. Borders to the first EU accession countries from central Europe open on 1 May, doubtless soon to be followed by the first Romany caravans to trundle across English Channel, and with them a fresh immigration row. The technical handover of power in Iraq is scheduled for June, a moment fraught with hazard. Then there is the momentous issue of the European constitution, due to receive Tony Blair’s signature at Göteborg in the middle of the month.

Each one of these issues requires tremendously delicate handling by an already out-of-form and lacklustre Prime Minister. Their convergence in such a short space of time threatens havoc. This unpropitious conjunction comes as Britain sleepwalks towards the worst industrial relations situation for two decades. There are unmistakable signs that Tony Blair is to pay a heavy price for his repeated failures of nerve over public services reform. He has made the elementary mistake of handing out cash without extracting concessions for productivity improvements in return. The results are predictable. The Public and Commercial Services Union has already called its workers out; railway employees are voting on a midsummer walkout; and there are mutterings from the teachers.

The local and European elections come in the midst of all this. The government has done its best to rig the result. Sam Younger of the Electoral Commission has yielded to pressure and permitted widespread ‘pilot schemes’ for compulsory postal voting in Labour heartland areas in the Midlands and the North. Nevertheless this is likely to be the biggest local drubbing for a sitting government since John Major’s administration ten years ago.

More articles from: Peter Oborne | this section

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