Grumbling Grows Over Blair's Globe-Trotting

By Mike Peacock

LONDON (Reuters) - For two months he's criss-crossed the globe, trying to cement a wide coalition for the ``war on terror.'' But now critics and allies of Britain's Tony Blair are asking: what about the home front?

The prime minister has met 54 world leaders since the September attacks on New York and Washington and visited 16 different countries -- all key to a united front against Osama bin Laden.

That, critics say, means he can have spent no time on the domestic issues on which he won re-election in a June landslide.

For two days running, the Daily Express has demanded Blair returns to fix problems at home. And at their weekly joust on Wednesday, Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith ignored the war for the first time, attacking on health and transport.

Blair's aides insist the prime minister is not becoming a proxy Foreign Secretary for the United States.

His spokesman said he had spent just nine days of the last 57 out of the country, adding that the war was indivisible from the domestic agenda -- pointing to the problems of the airline, insurance and tourist industries since September 11.

``A government has a duty to defend its citizens from attack, defend its economy from instability and defend its citizens from the menace of drugs,'' he told reporters.

Police say up to 90 percent of British street heroin comes from Afghanistan.

WAR WON'T WIN ELECTION

Wars rarely win elections unless they are fought and won close to polling day. The Falklands War is widely credited with securing Margaret Thatcher re-election in 1983 but George Bush senior was kicked out of the White House barely 18 months after the Gulf War.

Blair does not face re-election for four years or more. He openly admits the issues that will win or lose that battle will be domestic: schools, hospitals, policing and transport.

All require billions of pounds investment at a time when Treasury's coffers are shrinking as the global economy slows. Blair's eye cannot be fully on that ball and Chancellor of the Exchecker Gordon Brown apart, he has never been keen on delegating control.

``Blair has run a centralized ship. If the top guy is not paying attention there is bound to be an effect,'' said Paul Whiteley, professor of government at Essex University.

For many, the last straw came on Wednesday when Blair jetted off to Washington for what was billed as little more than a catch-up session with President Bush.

Meanwhile, at home, his government unveiled a seismic constitutional shake-up, ejecting the last hereditary aristocrats from the House of Lords, ending their 700-year grip on the second chamber of parliament.

There are signs of frayed edges, although it is not clear what a fully-focused Blair could have done about them.

Labor's leader in Scotland, Henry McLeish, dogged by a scandal over 36,000 pounds ($52,700) of undeclared expenses, resigned on Thursday.

And Blair's Transport Secretary, Stephen Byers, is facing calls for his head for driving rail infrastructure giant Railtrack into bankruptcy and costing shareholders small fortunes.

For now, Blair can take comfort from the opinion polls. A weekend survey by MORI showed 66 percent supported Blair's handling of events since September 11 but that is down from 83 percent shortly after the atrocities were committed.

If recession bites, the Taliban and bin Laden remain defiant or British troops start coming home in body bags, those figures could swing sharply.

Already, more than half of those surveyed think events over the last two months have made recession more likely.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2001