Mr Blair would be happy enough to survive to fight another day Another group of rebels will not budge because they believe Labour must not break its 2001 election manifesto promise to block top-up fees. The biggest group of rebels are genuinely opposed to variable fees. Mr Blair's best hope is that enough of them will be persuaded to back off by last-minute concessions before Tuesday, knowing they could try to amend the Higher Education Bill during its later stages. Mr Blair would be happy enough to survive to fight another day.One argument that ministers are using with the rebels is that defeat would send a signal that Labour had reverted to its bad old ways. "If Howard wins this vote, he could win the general election," the dissenters are being told. So the vote on top-up fees is more serious, and probably more salient with the public, than the Hutton report. In the past week, Downing Street's energy has been expended largely on top-up fees, because it cannot really do much about Hutton until the advance copy lands on Tuesday. That does not mean there are not real concerns about Lord Hutton's verdict. If Mr Blair is blamed for the "naming strategy" under which Dr Kelly's name became public, there will be calls for his resignation - and he will be much more vulnerable if he has lost Tuesday's vote. If not, the media's hunt for a scalp will probably turn to Geoff Hoon. Ministers hope the Hutton report will spread the blame between the Government, the BBC and Dr Kelly.
But I suspect the media will not easily be diverted from Lord Hutton's judgment on the Government.Will Mr Blair come through his 24 hours of hell? My hunch - and it is only that - is that the Great Houdini will somehow wriggle free once again, squeaking victory on top-up fees and surviving whatever arrows Lord Hutton fires at him and his government. But it is going to be too close for comfort, and it might be his last great escape.a.grice independent.co.uk. Next week may be high noon for Tony Blair, Geoff Hoon and the other players in the Hutton inquiry but it is also the week that will end Michael Howard's honeymoon. The Tory leader completes his first three months in good shape with the latest online poll from YouGov giving his party 40 per cent, a clear five-point lead over Labour. This is the best showing since 1992 when the ERM d?cle consigned the Tories to second place for most of the subsequent decade. Earlier this week, another poll, for Mori, using more traditional random sample methods, still recorded Labour on 37 per cent, giving them a 2 per cent lead over the Tories.While both polls show that the Tories are firmly back in business, the Conservatives should be recording huge leads at this stage in the political cycle if they are to have any serious prospect of winning the next general election. Perversely, however, the YouGov poll increases the pressure on Mr Howard as much as for Mr Blair. Expectations are now so dangerously high over the Tories' ability to score runs at the Prime Minister's expense that anything less than a defeat for the Government on university tuition fees, and an outcome from the Hutton inquiry directly implicating Mr Blair in Dr Kelly's suicide, will enable Labour spin doctors to claim that the worst is over for the Government.The poll, while obviously welcome, has come a week too early for the Tories. Next week provides an opportunity for the Prime Minister to draw a line under the events of the past six months. Labour spin doctors will already be using this poll to create more leverage on backbench dissidents to fall into line on the tuition fees Bill. The clever move this weekend by government whips - having suggested previously that the revolt was falling away - to admit that the vote is still in the balance will actually have the effect of putting more pressure on the softer rebels to abstain, rather than vote against the Bill at second reading. So, as a former whip recalling similar methods we employed during crucial votes on Maastricht, my hunch is that the Government will successfully win the vote on Tuesday.Wednesday, the day of publication of the Hutton report, is also being billed as the day that could break Mr Blair's premiership with Mr Howard destined to strike the killer blow. Again, however, hunch suggests that by this time next week things may well have turned out to be something of a damp squib. |
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