"90 days", 12 days on

SteelyGlint is hugely enthused by an edited version of his piece on "the new commentariat" being quoted in the Guardian's "How the bloggers saw it..." column on Saturday (it seems this is only in the print edition). If he'd realised this particular rant was going to be so widely read he might have been more thoughtful. The fact that the mainstream media "get their facts wrong continually" is not, on reflection, a primary cause of the problem. Rather, it is a symptom of their short time horizon, which has many other effects.

This led me to reflect on the "90 day" vote, lost by the government less than 2 weeks ago. At the time we were treated to a new wave of speculation that Blair would soon hand over to Brown. Yawn! The dissonance between what the press was saying and what I was seeing with my own eyes (thanks to the BBC News 24 & Parliament channels) was painful. Blair looks to me like a man in control, as he should be with a renewed mandate. He's not the tired, haunted figure of 2003, during the run-up and early days of the Iraq war.

And let's look at the 90 day vote itself. Blair forced a vote on this issue, but what was his alternative? If he'd proposed 60 days, or 42, or anything more than 28 he may still have lost. Then how would the Government have looked? What did he gain by forcing the vote, though? I saw several comments in the BBC's "Have Your Say" forum from people swearing never to vote Conservative again. Blair may not have managed to split the Tories in the House, but he may have undermined some of their support in the country.

But I think Blair gained in other ways as well: most importantly he's been able to size up the rebel problem (as well as draw their fire: some will be reluctant to rebel again, wanting Brown, if not Blair, to trust them sometime in the future). I've seen something similar done effectively in business, when pushing a team to meet timescales. If you go for broke and fail, you take a short-term hit, but may also learn what you have to do to succeed. A weak Blair would never have been able to do this. What's more he's done it early, which is also important.

My comment on the BBC's "Have Your Say" [which incidentally they managed to lose before failing to respond to my query about the problem - never again] was to the effect that the "90 day" vote may have reflected parliamentary opinion, but only by accident! Many Labour MPs probably voted for 90 days against their better judgement, and almost certainly many Tories voted against it despite theirs. Hardly an advert for parliamentary democracy, as many claimed in the aftermath of the vote. Quite the opposite. The public, I suggest, will only have limited tolerance of Parliament becoming an exercise in defeating the government for the sake of it (by the opposition parties combining forces and allying with Labour rebels) rather than a forum for debate according to what the parties believe in (which is admittedly becoming ever more obscure). I suspect Blair senses this. The Tories obviously do not. I was staggered that they blew more capital by organising a vote on the licensing bill: not only contradicting their stance before the election but also leaving their likely new leader looking foolish (see here & here, for example). It should be put off until after the Christmas season: pathetic!

And Blair has bailed out his Home Secretary. Clarke made a pig's ear of this, but there hasn't been a murmur about his position. And now I think of it, he forced Brown into a public show of support.

No, the 90 day vote was a sign of Blair's strength, not his weakness. He knew he was playing a long game: the media were looking only a few days ahead.