Now Mr Blair can be dignified in defeat

When England played Brazil in the 1970 World Cup I watched the match in a Nottingham hotel with Anthony Crosland. "Good God, he's scored," Crosland observed with evident surprise when an agile South American placed the ball in the back of the net from a long way off; which only goes to show that not much has changed in the meantime. Crosland had spent the day campaigning in the neighbouring villages, including what was even then Mr Kenneth Clarke's constituency. Much good did that do Harold Wilson in the general election which was only a few weeks away.

It is sometimes asserted that Wilson had fixed this election date with the cup in mind. England's elimination then rebounded on Labour. Certainly he made frequent mention of "the lads" in his speeches. Yet nowhere does he claim that the competition had anything to do with his decision. Nor do the other chroniclers of the times. Even so, it is not wholly implausible to say that Wilson was thinking of the World Cup when he fixed the election date.

What does not make sense at all is the parallel story that Wilson timed the 1966 election because of the cup. He cannot have done this because the election was held in March, whereas England won at Wembley in July. He certainly exploited the occasion in full, appearing unexpectedly on the team's hotel balcony with Sir Alf Ramsey and the players. By this time the election was safely won too.

This did not mean that he escaped criticism: far from it. He was, I think, the first Prime Minister to be accused of latching on to a sporting triumph which had nothing to do with him. Precisely the same accusation would, we may be sure, have been made against Mr Tony Blair if things had gone differently on Friday and England had proceeded to win the competition. Whatever he did would have been wrong.

Though I am sure he shares the sadness of every patriotic Englishman, a great weight has now been lifted from his mind. Mr Alastair Campbell, as avid a football follower as the Prime Minister, if not more so, can likewise go about his daily tasks with a lighter step. Far from exploiting triumph, Mr Blair will be paying deserved tribute to gallant losers. A reception at No 10 is the very least the lads can now expect, and no one will think any the worse of Mr Blair on that account.

We can all see that Mr Blair is worried by the attacks in the newspapers. But why on earth should he be? If he were a Prime Minister with a narrow or non-existent majority and a year or so to go before the next election, he might have more cause for concern. Instead he possesses a majority of 165 and four years in hand. He has won not just one but two landslides: something that I, for one, did not expect, though others such as Mr Gerald Kaufman did. Why then is he in such a jumpy state?

One part of the answer is that he does not like not to be liked. That is to understate the position: he cannot bear it. The other part of the answer is that there is a tide in the affairs of governments which, once lost, is impossible to recapture. This was most eloquently put by James Callaghan in relation to Margaret Thatcher shortly before the 1979 election. People were reacting both against the muddle of the 1970s and, indeed, against the whole of the postwar consensus.

But we must distinguish between a turning point of this kind – another example occurred in 1945 – and a shift in the terms of trade between government and newspapers. I read the other day, for instance, that the press "brought down" the postwar Labour government. Certainly rationing, austerity and the Housewives' League (subsequently exposed as a Conservative "front" organisation) were the cause of much bad publicity. But Labour narrowly won the 1950 election all the same. And in the election 18 months later, which it lost, it polled more votes than the Conservatives. What brought down Labour was demoralisation, reflected in C R Attlee's unnecessary decision to have an election when he did.

There is a similar myth about the shift in the 1960s which led to Wilson's government. This, admittedly, is more plausible. But though the press certainly turned against Harold Macmillan as a result of the imprisonment of two journalists in the Vassall spy case of 1962, the press did not bring him down. Nor did the Profumo affair in the next year bring him down either. He brought himself down by resigning after a prostate operation.

It was generally supposed, until quite recently, that he did this because of a faulty prognosis. But the son of the surgeon who performed the operation has told us that his father's forecast was that Macmillan would, after a period of rest, be able to return to work – as, indeed, he demonstrated convincingly by living to the grand old age of 92, though not as Prime Minister. And if the Tories had possessed the sense to chose R A Butler rather than Lord Home to succeed him, they would probably have won the 1964 election as well. Nothing appears more inevitable than what has already happened.

There is only one good reason for Mr Blair to stop being Prime Minister: that is Mrs Blair. It is not that she has become an embarrassment, which is what some of the papers have now decided. The Mail on Sunday even accused her of "upstaging Liz Hurley". This is clearly almost as serious a breach of constitutional convention as upstaging Mrs David Beckham – or, more reprehensible still, Mr David Beckham. No, the feeling in lawyer-land is that if Ms Cherie Booth QC is to be a judge, she cannot at the same time be married to the Prime Minister. For myself, I cannot for the life of me see why not: the more so as she is already a deputy judge anyway. On merit, she could be the first woman to sit with the Lords of Appeal. But she would first have to go to the High Court, and she is now 45.

Everyone has been writing as if Mr Blair's Downing Street press conferences were something completely new – or, at any rate, borrowed from the United States. In fact they were inaugurated by Sir (as he then wasn't) Edward Heath during the last, corporatist-consensual phase of his premiership. They were not, however, held in No 10 but at Lancaster House. By his side he had the head of the civil service, Sir William Armstrong, who went on to lose his reason, poor fellow, rather than Mr Campbell, who is still in full possession of his faculties.

Sir Edward had himself modelled these performances on those of the French President, Charles de Gaulle, at the Elysee Palace in Paris. But de Gaulle not only gave press conferences. He also knew when to keep quiet.