Tony Blair spent much of 2005 trying to lead the world. He used the cyclical coincidence that granted him the chairmanship of the G8 while Britain held the presidency of the EU to theatrical effect, deploying his oratorical powers to push for debt relief in Africa and a response to climate change, while standing firm against terrorism. With his hand on the tiller of global affairs as the world looked on, he was lauded by many beyond these shores for his efforts. But 2006 presents him with a more prosaic yet more daunting challenge before a more critical audience. He must prove his relevance to the United Kingdom. After a year of basking in the geopolitical limelight he has to answer a pointed and perhaps painful personal question: what, any more, is the point of Tony Blair?
Mr Blair’s decision to “pre-resign” before last year’s general election means the countdown to his departure will tick ever louder through 2006. The timing remains largely his. Gordon Brown, however impatient, would harm his own standing by striking for the crown, as well as breaking the promise of an “orderly” transition. Other possible contenders are too loyal to Mr Blair to pre-empt him. But if his reform programme grinds to a halt, then there may come a time this year when Mr Blair should make way for Mr Brown, allowing the Chancellor plenty of time to get the measure of the new Tory leader.
The fate of the Education Bill and its promised freedoms for secondary schools is critical. If Mr Blair compromises too much with Labour rebels and is disdainful of Tory votes to help the measure through he will raise potentially terminal questions about his continued effectiveness as Prime Minister. Even the successful passage of a measure that frees schools from local authority control would not necessarily prolong his time in No 10. Mr Blair’s window for achieving legislative success is as brief as his wish list is long. His inevitably waning authority is such that any reform of significance, on health or welfare, that fails to pass by the end of the current parliamentary session this autumn is unlikely to succeed at any later date. He will take long-term decisions this year on pensions and nuclear power. But at some point in the next 12 months, Mr Blair will have to ask himself whether his mission in Downing Street is as complete as he can make it. By the autumn Labour may well have suffered a bruising defeat at the local elections. The clamour from Labour MPs for a date of departure from Mr Blair would then be deafening. He may have to show his hand at this year’s Labour conference, announcing, for instance, that his successor would take the helm in 12 months’ time. We may be reaching the beginning of the end. Mr Brown, meanwhile, must show that he has as much to offer to new Labour’s future as he did to its past, or his (presumed) premiership may stumble at the first.
The other main party leaders, David Cameron and Charles Kennedy, face similar questions to Mr Blair but for different reasons. When Mr Cameron’s honeymoon comes to an end, as it must, he will have to show there is substance behind the style, that his claim to high office is based on more than an acute sense of positioning, fine scriptwriting and feats, however impressive, of memory. He may need to pick a fight with intransigent elements in his own party to help further define himself for the wider electorate. The task for Mr Kennedy is harder and, possibly, too great. He has to re-invent himself, or at least his leadership, if he is to respond successfully to the concerns of senior Liberal Democrat colleagues. The demands of the local elections mean that if Mr Kennedy fails to quell the doubts, he may be gone before the end of February.
Few will feel the need to prove their worth more than President Bush. Like Mr Blair, his time for accomplishment is running out. With Congress failing to bite on his domestic legislative priorities, the President will look to Iraq for concrete achievement. The danger is that the timetable for substantial US troop withdrawals will owe as much to the date of November’s mid-term congressional elections than to requirements on the ground. An over-hasty departure, before Iraqi security forces are ready to assume full control for law and order, would jeopardise much of the good work. It would also risk hampering the new Iraqi Government, which will be formed in the new year and which must establish its authority quickly by showing Iraqis that it can overcome sectarian and political differences in order to improve ordinary lives.
As in Britain, 2006 heralds a year of transition for the political elite across Europe. Angela Merkel remains an enigma to most Germans and may need to reveal more about herself and what guides her if she is to prevent the contradictions of her grand coalition suffocating her chancellorship. Jacques Chirac may dream of another term in the Elysee Palace, but his rotten legacy will surely prevent it. The real political entertainment in France will be the captivating struggle between the patrician Dominique de Villepin and the populist Nicolas Sarkozy to succeed the French President in 2007. Silvio Berlusconi faces a tough, if not impossible, re-election in April. Current polls suggest that Italians have had enough of the showman. Signor Berlusconi would disagree, and may try to engineer a bid for the Italian presidency if his prime ministership looks doomed.
Elections in the Middle East hold the prospect of both advancing peace hopes and dashing them. Victory for Ariel Sharon’s post-Likud Kadima group in March would reshape Israeli politics, with the promise of progress. But the Israeli poll may be dominated by the results of January’s Palestinian elections, where gains by the Islamist militants of Hamas will pose a diplomatic challenge to Israel and other countries, notably the US.
Institutions, too, will need to prove their mettle. The International Atomic Energy Agency will be careless to the point of irrelevance if it fails to refer the nuclear activity of Iran and its bellicose president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the UN Security Council. The G8 risks a similar fate if it allows Russia to chair the group of industrialised democracies for the first time without challenging President Putin’s authoritarianism. In Syria, the UN must pursue vigorously its scrutiny of the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, even if that threatens to end the Assad regime.
But despite the weighty issues, the power politics and intricate international diplomacy that will help to define this year, much may fail to make an impression. If England win the World Cup this summer (metatarsals permitting), 2006 will be remembered on these shores for only one thing. After all, did anything else actually happen in 1966?
