Sir Ian McKellen’s visits to Downing Street were supposedly to discuss gay rights. To study the Prime Minister’s conference speech at Bournemouth, though, suggests another possibility: that our foremost Shakespearian actor has been giving Tony Blair some voice training. The trembling, impassioned delivery, the pregnant pauses: while most retired prime ministers these days are assured of a lucrative second career addressing annual corporate beanfeasts in glitzy convention halls across America, Tony Blair’s talents will earn him a place, too, on the provincial theatre circuit.
Puffy, red-blooded socialists who only a few moments earlier were plotting over pints of Tetleys were caught sobbing, on camera. Even trade-unionist troublemakers were reduced to the mildest objections. Anyone who had been hoping to witness Mr Blair being slain at his podium had overestimated the death of tribalism in the Labour party. No matter the grumblings about Iraq and foundation hospitals, Mr Blair can count on enough spotty student groupies and podgy party faithfuls to shore up his position as leader for some time to come.
When Tony Blair is finally driven from Downing Street, outblubbing Mrs Thatcher as he goes, it won’t be as a result of fratricide by Gordon Brown or because of disgrace at the verdict of Lord Hutton. The end, when it arrives, is more likely to come through the ballot box. Anybody who believes a majority of 166 to be too great to be overturned in one election has not spotted the timebomb ticking away beneath Mr Blair: debt.
The figures worth watching are not the opinion polls but economic data. While the Prime Minister was doing his stuff at Bournemouth, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) was having its own say. In the three months to June, the government’s deficit was £14.5
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