Will Europeanism be Blair’s answer to Thatcherism?

At last an opinion poll has suggested that Mr Blair might not remain prime minister for as long as he likes. By the time this appears, another opinion poll might return to what has long been the normal condition: Mr Blair well in the lead, the Conservatives no danger to him. But Mr Blair must be experiencing intimations of mortality. Matters have not been going well for him. He might see the time drawing near when he will no longer be prime minister, voluntarily or involuntarily.

But, for prime ministers, ceasing to be prime minister is not the end of their relationship with the office. Ex-premierships last longer than the longest premierships. This is irrespective of how long the ex-premier lives on after Downing Street. The ex-premiership persists after the departure of the ex-premier from this life. Departed prime ministers, and their premierships, live on in history. History has something to say about the least successful and most obscure of them, let alone ones as prominent and successful as Mr Blair, with his two landslides won before the age of 50.

How to live on successfully, either as an ex-premier still alive, or later in the history books? The more the problem is thought about, the more it seems that, to do so, they need the same as they needed to become and remain prime minister in the first place. They need followers.

They need ‘ites’ with an ‘ism’. Lady Thatcher has Thatcherites and Thatcherism. Her followers give dinners in her honour. Every now and then she explains the relevance of her ‘ism’ to the events of the day. Often, these feasts and pronouncements take place in the United States or occasionally – with the feasts presumably less sumptious – in eastern Europe.