For Tony Blair, the damage is already done

One of the mysteries of politics today is how Tony Blair can remain quite so oblivious to the damage that Iraq is causing him. It cannot be stupidity, because he is a highly intelligent man. It cannot be political insensitivity since this is one of the most politically astute prime ministers of the last half century. The answer, I think, is an almost wilful refusal to face up to one of the most basic rules of prime ministerial life. It is that leaders are there, essentially, to act as a mirror in which their citizens can view themselves. Those who make their nations feel better about themselves win out, and those who do not, fail. Maggie Thatcher and, for a time, Harold Macmillan, are the classic examples of the winners. John Major and, at the end, Edward Heath were examples of the reverse. So, unless something very remarkable happens, will Tony Blair.

The traditional political view is rather different, of course. To politicians and their advisers, issues of foreign policy and even war are seen as all very exciting to the world within the loop, but when you start canvassing on the doorstep it is domestic and personal matters that concern the voters. Their taxes, the problems of getting an operation for their aunt, the difficulties their children are having at school, these are the real questions which swing votes.

Perhaps. But it is worth remembering just what did happen to John Major and, for that matter, Heath and Callaghan. It wasn't the economy that brought them down, but the sense of national humiliation that came with Black Wednesday, the miners' strike and the winter of discontent.

From the moment that Britain was forced ignominiously from the ERM, Major's ratings never altered one jot from the floor to which they collapsed. What Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did in terms of modernising the Labour Party was, no doubt, very important and necessary, but in terms of the electorate you could have run a herd of donkeys as the Opposition, and Major would still have lost.

Of course, the economy is part of what makes voters feel good about themselves. There is nothing like job insecurity to make an electorate want to change a government, and nothing like soaring markets and rising employment to make them keep a sitting administration in power.

But it's not enough or even the necessary condition of power. A nation's opinion of itself is subtly bound up with the reputation of the country abroad. Voters grew tired of Britain's reputation as a place of strife and inefficiency, failing companies and bolshie unionists, which is why Jim Callaghan fell at the end. It took Maggie Thatcher to win a war in the Falklands to really get her ratings up. Before that, she would have lost if an election had been called.

It is a political point peculiar to the position of the Prime Minister. Governments as a whole don't necessarily gain the credit nor suffer the blame for the way that their electorates feel. Anthony Eden fell, but his party went on to win the election. Indeed, it could be argued that the importance of the premier is precisely that: to provide an image that improves the citizens' self-regard. You don't have to be liked (Mrs Thatcher certainly wasn't), but you do seem to have to be admired abroad as much as at home.

Which, of course, is where Iraq comes in. Blair started off reasonably well. The British liked the way he quite quickly came to be taken up abroad as an example of the new generation of younger, caring leaders, and Blair took to foreign regard like a duck to water.

Iraq has changed everything. It's not simply a sticky situation as the Prime Minister keeps regarding it. Would that it were. It is a bloody and deteriorating scene, which the occupiers cannot feel good about.

The sense of being misled over the weapons of mass destruction is one thing. Had we seemed to be bringing peace, prosperity and freedom to a grateful people, he might have got away with it. But pictures of deliberate humiliation of prisoners and angry demonstrators demanding our early exit? The image they reflect back on ourselves is a discomforting one.

In Blair's view, if only circumstances could change for the better, then his own ratings will improve. A successful handover of authority to the Iraqis, the appearance of a country moving forward, and voters will return to their more immediate concerns.

But there is another way of looking at it. This is a leader who has made his nation feel bad about itself and he cannot be forgiven for it. Nor can the country move forward until he leaves.

a.hamilton@independent.co.uk