When is a victory really a defeat?
The answer to that Westminster riddle lies deep in the soul of the Labour party. Tonight Tony Blair should be celebrating a thumping Commons majority for his school reforms. And yet when the result's read out it will almost certainly be the Tories who will be cheering and Labour MPs who will look like they've bitten on a caseload of lemons.
Some will even claim that this victory will spell the beginning of the end of the Blair era. How so? Because it will almost certainly be the votes of David Cameron's Tories that will deliver it. This will not be the Labour bill delivered with Labour votes which Tony Blair strove for.
Isn't this, you might ask, an artificial hurdle? Certainly. Isn't it a tad baffling to those outside the Westminster village? Surely. But it is a hurdle that the prime minister set himself and one which - if he fails to clear it - will produce despair in his party. Party politics is, you see, as much a matter for the heart - of tribal loyalty and of knowing who and what you are against - as it is a matter for the head. The act of voting in the Commons by walking into a lobby reinforces that. Unsure how to vote? Then follow your friends. But tonight loyal Labour MPs will be forced to walk with their enemies into the government lobby - enemies who will taunt them for it.
Now, on its own, Tony Blair might simply be able to brush this aside. There have, after all, been other rebellions - some almost certainly larger than this one. But this is far from his only problem.
The complex finances of the Jowell household and of those deemed suitable for a peerage have connected two previously unconnected words - Labour and sleaze. The contents of the Downing Street intray are hardly likely to cheer up those who are disgruntled - new nuclear power stations, a replacement for Trident, NHS reforms that may in the short run lead to bed, ward or even hospital closures. Oh, and then there's May's local elections in which most in the party expect to get a bloody nose. It's a list long enough and gloomy enough to have some - even in the Cabinet - wondering whether Tony Blair should go sooner rather than later.
Team Blair though are ready with their response. This is not our 1990, they say. Blair is NOT Thatcher. His reforms are NOT the poll tax. He, unlike she, is NOT an electoral liability. Gordon Brown is NOT Michael Heseltine. He will NOT force his leader from power - restless though he is and angry at the legacy he might inherit as he seems to be. So, Tony Blair does not see today's vote as a test for him but as yet another test he's set for his party. Are they serious, he asks himself, about carrying on as New Labour? Will they back what he calls "Clause 4 in practice"? Will they turn today's victory for HIS ideas into a political defeat? They, of course, might yet turn on him and insist that it's he and not them who is really the cause of their problems.
P.S.
Tony Blair may actually be defeated in a second vote tonight on the timetable for the parliamentary scrutiny of this legislation. The Tories are promising to form an alliance with Labour rebels to deliver what would be a largely symbolic defeat - though it would create a headache for party managers. I've no doubt that the prime minister will try to turn that defeat into a political victory by taunting David Cameron at Question Time for hypocrisy - claiming that he wants a bill while voting against its swift progress.
Funny business, politics. Lewis Carroll could have had great fun with it.
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