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Few cheers for Blair in his last days at No 10

Hasan Suroor

His interrogation by the police and a fresh row over Britain's allegedly murky arms deal with Saudi Arabia make headlines.

IF HE sticks to the plans, imposed on him by his party, to retire early next year, this will be Tony Blair's last Christmas as Prime Minister. But, boy, what a run-up it is turning out to be to his farewell Christmas in Downing Street, judging from the events of the past few days. And to think that there is still one full week to go.

Last week, even as a brightly-lit Christmas tree adorned the entrance to No 10, the mood inside was far from cheerful, what with policemen walking in and out of that famous black door and a fresh controversy brewing over the long-running saga of Britain's allegedly murky arms deal with Saudi Arabia. The wave of damaging headlines the two events generated shows just how much negative energy even a lame-duck and embattled premiership can yield.

First about the policemen thanks to whose "initiative" Mr. Blair chalked up the dubious distinction of becoming the first serving British Prime Minister to be questioned by the police in a criminal investigation. On Thursday, two detectives from Scotland Yard quietly dropped by at No 10 and spent nearly two hours "interviewing" him about allegations that he effectively "sold" peerages for cash by nominating four leading businessmen to the House of Lords after they gave secret loans to Labour Party on the eve of the 2005 general election. All four nominees, among whom were two Asian industrialists — Ghulam Noon and Chai Patel — were rejected by the Lords peerages committee after their financial links with the Labour Party became public.

Mr. Blair's officials have been at pains to stress that he was interviewed as a witness and not an accused and that he robustly defended his decision, as leader of the Labour Party, to reward his party's supporters. But the fact that he remains at the heart of a corruption scandal has not helped his public image, already irreparably damaged by his subservient and politically suicidal "special" relationship with United States President George W. Bush.

Blown out of proportion

There is no doubt that the whole cash-for-peerages affair has been blown out of all proportions to embarrass an unpopular Prime Minister who has lost the trust of his own MPs. But for a man who came to power vowing to clean up sleaze there was something palpably dodgy in the way he used his power of patronage to collect money for his party's election fund. His widely quoted boast that he was a "pretty straight kind of a guy," as opposed to the "sleazy" Tories, has been hugely undermined by this latest in a series of his less-than-straight actions. The most controversial, of course, was the way he used a "sexed-up" dossier on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction to buy Parliament's support for the Iraq invasion.

When the history of the Blair leadership is written, two dates will leap out for attention: (1) September 24, 2002, the day his government published the Iraq dossier and he told MPs that Saddam Hussein "has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population"; and (2) December 14, 2006 (or "14/12" as it has already been dubbed) when for the first time in living memory policemen walked into Downing Street to question an incumbent Prime Minister.

The first was to become the point at which the decline of the Blair era is widely seen to have begun, and the second completed the humiliation of a man who has become a bit of a national joke — ridiculed by his own party colleagues, the media, and the public.

Barely had Mr. Blair emerged from that humiliating encounter with the Yard than he sparked another controversy, inviting more accusations that he is encouraging corruption. In a surprise move, for which the Prime Minister was later reported as saying that he accepted "full responsibility," the Government suddenly called off an ongoing investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into allegations that BAE Systems created a "slush fund" to bribe Saudi officials in order to win a multi-billion pound arms deal in the 1980s.

The decision reportedly followed pressure from the Saudi Government which apparently threatened to cancel a £6 billion contract to buy 72 Typhoon Eurofighters. Mr. Blair defended the move not so much on grounds that the threatened cancellation of the deal would have resulted in thousands of British job losses but on the vague plea that it was in Britain's "national interest" to stop the inquiry. "Leave aside the effect on thousands of British jobs and billions worth of pounds for British industry...Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is vitally important for our country in terms of counter-terrorism, in terms of the broader Middle East and in terms of helping in respect of Israel and Palestine," he said.

But, as with much of what he says these days, nobody is buying Mr. Blair's argument and questions are being raised about his moral authority to "lecture" other nations about transparency, fighting corruption, and trade ethics. The Liberal Democrat leader, Menzies Campbell, described it as a "sorry day for Britain's reputation." As for Mr. Blair's promise when he came to power in 1997 that his government would be "whiter than white," well that was then. Nine years is, indeed, a long time in politics.

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