BRITAIN: Would-be deputy leader aligns himself with US Democrats, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
While Tony Blair struggles to show he has influence with America and on the Middle East, Peter Hain has inadvertently underlined the prime minister's declining authority over his own cabinet.
In his annual Guildhall speech last night Mr Blair was stressing the continuing importance of Britain's "special relationship" with the US. But in a candid weekend interview Mr Hain - a serious candidate to be Labour's next deputy leader - made plain his impatience to see it under new American leadership, preferably that of Hillary Clinton.
Mr Blair has said nothing about the Republican loss of both Houses of Congress in what is generally accepted as an electoral indictment of the conduct of the Iraq war and its aftermath. However, Mr Hain - secretary of state for both Wales and Northern Ireland - showed no hesitation, cheerfully telling the Sunday Times: "The Democrats are our sister party and so every Labour member got a real fillip out of the results and the Democrat victories - I certainly did. There is no question that the particular Republican administration in Washington is a right-wing administration. It is not our politics. Our politics align much more closely to the Democrats."
This will hardly prove contentious among Labourites, whether Old or New, who were horrified by the arrival of a man they considered a "Texan cowboy". Indeed Mr Hain probably spoke for many Conservatives, too, when he said: "There's no question that George Bush is not the Labour Party's pin-up boy or, for that matter, the pin-up boy of most British voters."
And on balance Mr Hain may have done himself no harm at all, further burnishing his appeal for journalists and others who like his tendency to give direct answers and tell it at least as he sees it.
However, he can hardly have done Mr Blair any favours. To the contrary, his comments surely feed into the perception "out there" that if only Mr Bush hadn't been at the helm the whole history of the last six years might have been different.
And who has been standing "shoulder to shoulder" with the president? And if it's right to note "the new mood in America" won't some in Britain think next May's local and devolved elections a suitable opportunity to deliver their own verdict on the war supported by the cabinet of which Mr Hain happily remains a member?
Indeed, if the received wisdom now is that Mr Bush would have been wise to sack Donald Rumsfeld before the mid-terms, might some in the Labour Party see an obvious read-across? "Not particularly helpful" might have been Mr Blair's muted reaction on hearing Mr Hain's opinions about the widely predicted "beginning of the end" of the Bush presidency. But it's unlikely the would-be deputy leader would have got away with it 18 months ago. The Blair force is fading.