The View from Europe
Post-conference Post-mortem
by Nicola Mitchell

October 22, 2002 - LONDON (APJP) -- It's been party conference season here in the UK, the time of year when the faithful of both the Right and the Left converge on a number of Britain's sea-side resorts and hammer out their differences.

Of course, Iraq has been high on the agenda for everyone, but over at the Labour Party conference in Blackpool, the issue was upstaged slightly by the appearance of an old trusted friend.

Usually rather mundane and boring affairs, this year's Labour gathering was injected with a spot of Hollywood glamour after the arrival of Bill Clinton, who was in town to give a speech to the amassed party members, and his travelling companion Kevin Spacey.

The love affair between New Labour and Bill Clinton is a well-known story. It was his style of politics which helped to put Tony Blair were he is today, and his presence at the Labour gathering was welcomed with all the trappings celebrity has to offer.

His speech, which had conference goers mesmerised, served to back up Blair's hard line stance on the possibility of a war with Iraq. In some ways it was pay back time -- Blair has always been there to back up Clinton's past foreign policy decisions and now it is time to return the favour.

Many in the UK press have been quick to draw comparisons between Blair and Clinton. They have speculated as to the reasons why Tony Blair continues to drive this relationship with a "tarnished" former president forward -- while he is trying so desperately to forge an iron bond with his successor.

Moreover, there have been further comparisons about the style of the political terms served by both men. During Clinton's reign the Right were in disarray, and although constantly ridiculed in the press he enjoyed still managed to enjoy unrivalled public approval ratings. Blair too is riding high on public opinion despite the threat of a war, and again the Right are nowhere to be seen.

But the feeling among many is that the Labour Party has become smug and could be heading towards a fall, just as Clinton did.

To this end, Blair's keynote speech at the assembly was make or brake time. There have been many murmurings of discontent throughout the party regarding his readiness to follow Bush's lead with military action against Iraq, but his masterful speech was brilliantly delivered and went some way to easing over some of the bigger cracks in the party, although there is certainly still a long way to go.

The Conservative party, of course, could not possibly compete with this kind of glamour. The opposition party in the UK are in complete disarray, and Blair's continuing closeness to Bush is only serving to keep them further out in the wilderness. In fact, in a bid to reinvent themselves they too are attempting to borrow from the American way of doing things, using the "Compassionate Conservatism" -- which Dubya focused on so much during the campaign - as a banner sign for a party in desperate need of direction.

But it is all to little avail.

So as the last of the delegates head home, it remains to be seen if Blair has managed to convince his party that a strike against Iraq is the right thing to do. Recent events in Bali, however, have added a whole new perspective to the campaign against terror. For at least the time being, Bush appears to have realised that he needs friends in the international community and can no longer afford to ignore their criticism. The recent decision let the weapons inspectors do their thing. Dropping the demand for the UN to issue an immediate resolution that would give the go ahead for an invasion of Iraq is a step in the right direction -- although it in no way means that a war in Iraq is no longer on the cards.