# Posted 7:58 AM by Patrick Belton  

10 YEARS OF BLAIR: It is ten years ago today that the MP for Sedgefield was confirmed as the new leader of the Labour party. He would on 2 May 1997 become the nation's youngest prime minister since Lord Liverpool at the time of Waterloo. Of postwar governments, only Thatcher's lasted longer. Writing both as an American and as a longtime resident of Britain, I regard with great sadness the prospect he will ever have to go.

His political skills are without parallel in his own country, and abroad mark him as the only equal of Clinton. In the final question time before Parliament's summer recess, Blair's task was to defend the war in Iraq in the face of charges of flawed intelligence. He defended it, as was right, as an 'act of liberation for the Iraq people', saying that MPs should 'rejoice' in the result - a conscientious evocation of Margaret Thatcher at the Despatch Box after the Falklands. The magnificent assessments of his performance spanned party lines: the Guardian headlined that he 'survives Commons Iraq debate unscathed', the Daily Telegraph swooned that he 'showed he is a great survivor', and the tabloids joined the chorus.

He has reinvigorated centrism in Britain, as the DLC and similar organisations did for the United States. Again like his transatlantic partner, Blair's mark was to make many of the economic reforms of Thatcherism palatable to the left. As a result, the British economy has in our lives never been stronger. Whereas a quarter-century ago it had fallen past the Federal Republic of Germany and France, and was about to fall past Italy as well, it is now closing in on Germany for the European crown, and its per capita GDP mark it as the second richest country in Europe past Luxembourg.

It is a sad truism of British politics that, as Enoch Powell lamented, 'all political careers end in failure.' Baroness Thatcher is recalled now for the poll tax. Perhaps in the end Blair will be the final casualty of the Iraq war; his ratings are dismally low at the moment in satisfaction (36%) and making Britain a 'fairer' place (22%), and 55 percent believe he lied in the lead-up to Iraq. If so, it would be a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, and one in which its protagonist met his fate heroically. But perhaps he will live to die another day - he still commands a 5-point lead over the perpetually inept Tory opposition. If he does, it will be greatly for Britain's benefit.

UPDATE: Oh goodness, I've done something wrong with the per capita gdp - there's some measure by which Britain is the second-best off in Europe, but I won't be able to dig it out for a quick bit as I'm about to fly to New York. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion