More from The Week

At the worst moment in Labour party fortunes, some point in the mid-1980s, a Labour politician is said to have emerged from yet another resounding election defeat unrepentant, declaring: there must be no compromise with the electorate. There was something admirable about this remark. The politician who uttered the phrase had doubtless entered politics to espouse the causes he or she passionately believed in — socialism in one country, nuclear disarmament, ownership of the means of production, etc. The fact that the complacent and inert masses of the British people refused to entertain these Marxist insights was no reason to think again. This state of mind was not conducive to political success. There are analogies with the Conservative party since its landslide defeat in 1997.

Not long after John Major became prime minister Maurice Cowling, who died last week, asked me to a feast at Peterhouse. In the port-soaked aftermath in a candlelit Senior Combination Room, and between intermittent insults to the then Master, Lord Dacre (‘Come over here, you old bugger, somebody might want to meet you’), we had a conversation about the new prime minister. Precisely because he held the highest power in the land, Mr Major was not deemed worthy of the Cowlingesque sneer; that would come later. But his obvious managerialism and his lack of bottom provided causes for concern.

August has been a very bad month for Tony Blair. A mood of surly, pettish despair has overtaken the Labour party. Ministers, protected by official cars and red boxes, are scarcely aware of this. But it is out there, palpable and menacing. New Labour has reached a dead end, and nobody knows what to say or do. The government’s foreign policy is not far from collapse, though this too is not yet apparent to ministers. The Defence Secretary John Reid wrote an article in the Times last week which attacked the press for its failure to celebrate the many successes of the Iraqi invasion. Dr Reid’s article was not that distant in tone from Vice-President Cheney’s remarkable recent announcement that the insurgency is on its last legs.

Ken Clarke is going to stand for the leadership of the Conservative party. That is the hard, hot, agenda-changing news here in Westminster as the third week in August stretches to its sultry close. One word of caution must accompany this disclosure. Clarke will stand only if proposed changes to the Tory leadership rules, due to be ratified at a meeting of a ‘constitutional college’ on 27 September, are voted through. It is intended that this meeting will take the power to elect the leader away from the party membership and give it back to MPs. Ken Clarke remembers how he enjoyed a majority among his parliamentary colleagues back in 2001 but was nevertheless heavily defeated by the membership. He has told friends that he feels little enthusiasm for repeating that experience.

For security reasons newspapers have been asked not to name the holiday destination to which Tony Blair departed last weekend. This is fair enough, but Spectator readers will nevertheless be reassured to learn that the most characteristic feature of a Blair family holiday still applies: it is taking place at somebody else’s expense. The home where the Blairs are now staying is owned by a millionaire acquaintance, and it is most unlikely that they are paying anything near the market rate. In other respects life has changed. The day before setting off on holiday the Prime Minister suddenly called a press conference to announce emergency measures against terrorism. This event seems to have been intended to leave behind a sense that he was in control.

MPs set off on their holidays this week amid a mood of national consensus. Tony Blair’s reputation has never stood so high, and its lustre stretches across all parties. Conservative MPs look at him nowadays with adoration. They laugh when he laughs, and grimace when he grimaces. One of the main candidates for the Tory leadership, the moderniser David Cameron, has come to base his candidacy on the sublime proposition that he is the natural successor to Tony Blair. Cameron’s supporters openly claim that just as Blair, not John Major, was the inheritor of Thatcher, so Cameron rather than Gordon Brown will take on the gleaming Blair legacy. Meanwhile, leading figures from all parties have come together to confront the national emergency.

Amid the ‘tributes’ showered on the late Sir Edward Heath earlier this week, there was, inevitably for a man who upset so many people, the occasional reference to his most catastrophic service to his country: his decision to take us into what is now called the European Union. It was said, fairly, that Heath was not straight with the British people about this. The 1970 Conservative manifesto promised to negotiate about our possible entry; but entry took place without any further reference to the people. In a similarly secret way he effectively abolished our fishing industry and made a commitment — happily unfulfilled — to take us into a single European currency. Yet, as was said in many of the obituaries, Heath was a man of integrity.