The 'cash for honours' affair is muddying the whiter-than-white administration that Tony Blair promised, writes Frank Millar, London Editor.
Is Britain's ruling Labour Party now in meltdown, a casualty of Tony Blair's determination to outstay his welcome in 10 Downing Street? The hope that this is the case saw that question splashed across the front page of yesterday's Daily Mail. Funereal black, meanwhile, encased the Daily Telegraph'slead story chronicling Blair's battle for survival.
Readers might think the enthusiasm of the right-wing press to see the back of the beleaguered prime minister was explanation enough for his determination to remain in his post until the summer. However, Blair was hardly in a position to contradict John Humphrys on yesterday's BBC Radio 4 Todayprogramme, when Humphrys observed that the current sense of crisis is hardly the stuff of media invention.
Party chairman Hazel Blears, former leader Neil (now Lord) Kinnock, and would-be deputy leader Harriet Harman have all acknowledged that the so-called "cash for honours" scandal is having a "corrosive" effect on public trust.
INDEED, THE INTERVENTIONof the ever-loyal Lord Kinnock has encouraged the sense that Blair's second interview by Scotland Yard may have brought him to the "tipping point" in a tawdry affair the Liberal Democrats cheerfully predict will otherwise haunt the prime minister's remaining months in office.
It still seems improbable that Labour MPs are going to turf out a three-time election winner on the basis of a widening police inquiry that has seen some 90 people interviewed and no charges preferred thus far.
Even some who suspect that peerages and other honours were probably traded for secret pre-election loans question why Mr Blair should be punished for doing something the Tories did for years without complaint.
Many others, meanwhile, have grown suspicious of John Yates, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and his conduct of an inquiry heavily attended by leaks, early-morning arrests of Downing Street aides and resultant headlines deeply damaging to the government without, as yet, evidence of the kind to make any charges stick.
Yesterday, Blair suggested we might not have much longer to wait for the outcome. The Sun, less diplomatically, told "Yates of the Yard" he had two options - "to put up, or shut up". And Yates must know that with every second arrest, every second interview of members of the Blair inner circle, the stakes increase dramatically for him too. So much so that some, inside as well as outside the Labour Party, are convinced he is on to something rotten and that - whether in respect of the original complaint or a subsequent attempted "cover-up" - he will eventually have his day in court.
Indeed one commentator with expert knowledge of Labour affairs yesterday told The Irish Timeshe thought the current state of spin and counter-spin between Downing Street and Scotland Yard a massive game of "bluff" - but only because he reckoned both sides knew charges would not be preferred for as long as Blair remains prime minister.
While that might not suit the media take or "spin" on a good story, it has the ring of truth. But whatever the truth, the immediate danger for Blair lies in the perception that this affair and its resulting damage is now extending beyond him, and might actually hurt the party's prospects of winning a fourth term under a new leader.
"It's done damage to politics and the democratic process," Lord Kinnock told BBC's Straight Talk. "It's nourished everybody who had reservations and doubts. It's dismayed everybody who's got a commitment - it doesn't matter if they carry a party card of some kind or not - but just a commitment to the solidity, dependability, the integrity of British democracy."
THAT CRITIQUE CANonly make extremely uncomfortable reading for Blair - especially coming from a man who openly wept tears of joy on that famous day back in 1997 when Blair travelled to Buckingham Palace, where Queen Elizabeth asked him to form an administration he pledged would be whiter-than-white and "restore faith in public life".
"That it could have come to this . . ." are words with which increasing numbers of Labour MPs begin a sentence, before trailing off and shaking their heads in weary disbelief.
The full indignity of it was again laid bare yesterday, as Humphrys reminded Blair of his retort a few short months after his 1997 victory when questioned about the Bernie Ecclestone affair, that small matter of a £1 million (€1.5 million) pre-election gift to Labour from the motor racing tycoon, and the subsequent question of Formula One's exemption from a proposed ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship in sport.
"I think most people who have dealt with me think that I am a pretty straight sort of guy," Blair had told Humphrys on that occasion. "But they don't think that now, do they?" the distinguished broadcaster put it to him yesterday.
The Ecclestone affair provided a first, early indication that Blair's "New Labour" regime might have difficulty with the concept of "a conflict of interests". However the real blow landed in yesterday's encounter came when Humphrys pressed the prime minister about his determination to remain in position even now, when that very resolution looks inimical to the interests of his party.
Blair agreed the "cash for honours" affair was damaging and expressed the hope it would not carry on much longer, while conceding he did not know and could not say. "But you could end it," offered Humphrys, suggesting an early departure as one last service to his party, adding that Gordon Brown could presumably handle all those issues that seemed to prevent Blair naming the day.
"I'm sure he could," was all Blair would offer to this affirmation of Brown's capability, before asserting that this would not be "a very democratic way to determine who is going to be prime minister". And on that point, even Labour MPs who hate him will agree.
Yet the exchange with Humphrys may also have awakened the deep-seated fears of some Brownites that Blair really cares little about who or what comes after him.
Which leaves the rest of the party to pray Blair and Brown are now working to an agreed timetable for the promised "orderly transition", which should then begin with an announcement that Blair is finally standing down in late April or early May.
THE DYING WEEKSin between will be painful for Labour, and David Cameron will enjoy their remaining jousts across the despatch box - taunting the departing prime minister, as on Wednesday, with questions to which only Blair's successor can now provide the answer.
However, the comfort for Labour MPs is that Cameron's enjoyment of the sport may be short-lived. For - despite the daily diet of headlines screaming Home Office chaos, health cuts, educational failures, gloomy economic forecasts, cabinet splits and deputy leadership contenders jockeying for position - the opinion polls confirm that the Conservatives are failing to capitalise to anything like the extent necessary to have a fighting chance of forming a government after the next election.
Having determined to go, Blair can hardly be surprised the country no longer wants him. But it is far from clear that it wants Cameron either. It is thus still Brown's to lose.