Body double

Date: 14/06/03

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are friends again. Really

WHEN the ancient Romans wanted to know what was going to happen, they called on some rather specialised priests, known as haruspices, to examine the entrails of a slaughtered animal. We've come a long way since then.

These days, we look to “body language” for the answers. Forget the 18 studies and 2,000-odd pages prepared by the eager beavers at the Treasury to support the Chancellor's widely-predicted “not yet” statement to the Commons this week. If you really want to know whether and when Britain is going into the euro, check out whether Tony Blair crosses his legs when Gordon Brown is speaking or whether Gordon looks out confidently at the audience when Tony is in full flight. If either man doodles or shuffles papers while the other is in action, it's all still to play for. Or something like that.

At a Blair-Brown press conference intended to demonstrate their unity the day after the chancellor had explained why Britain's economy wasn't ready to throw in its lot with the eurozone, at least half the questions were about relations between the two men. At one point, the prime minister was asked whether he agreed with Matthew Parris, a columnist in the Times, that “they often hate each other, always love each other and both need each other. Their relationship is complicated, violent and strong”. Mr Blair replied (a touch bitchily, given Mr Parris's open homosexuality), “I think that probably tells you more about Matthew than us.”

For what it's worth, Bagehot divines a distinct improvement in the central relationship of British politics. Although the wrangling over the euro has been intense and protracted, just by spending much more time than usual in each other's company, without the presence of advisers, Mr Blair and Mr Brown must have been reminded of each other's qualities. The compromise they have come up with may be unsatisfactory to zealots on either side, but they can live with it, and they have convinced themselves that it is right for the country.

The chancellor sees himself as still in sole charge of the process determining Britain's euro entry. He remains the keeper of the five tests and he alone will judge how much progress is made towards reducing those impediments to structural convergence he has identified. He can also argue with some justification that the greater stability he wants to bring about in the housing market and the greater flexibility he wants to see in public-sector wage-fixing are worth achieving in themselves.

Crucially, while the prime minister's trust ratings have collapsed, Mr Brown retains a greater degree of public confidence than any other major political figure. According to the latest poll from YouGov, 55% would back Mr Brown's judgment on the euro compared with only 12% for Tony Blair. The chancellor is still credited with running a strong economy, while faith in Mr Blair has been weakened by Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction. The upshot is that Mr Brown felt relaxed enough to save Mr Blair's face by preserving the notional possibility of a euro referendum before the next election, while knowing that, in reality, the matter is closed.

But for the prime minister, the outcome is also quite satisfactory. There is now a timetable of sorts for a referendum. Mr Brown is now willing to quantify in generous terms the potential economic, as opposed to the merely political, advantages of joining the euro. And he has committed himself to honing the economy in specific ways for euro entry. Despairing europhiles who groan that the necessary structural reforms are the work of decades have misread the chancellor's intentions. Although he would never admit it, the logic of Mr Brown's position is that he now thinks that eventual membership of the euro is inevitable and that he must therefore prepare accordingly.

In the short-term, what is most gratifying to Mr Blair is Mr Brown's evident desire to help build what they call “the patriotic case for Europe”. There is much about the European Union that is not to the chancellor's liking, but he hates being painted in Tory Eurosceptic colours and, moreover, he has convinced himself that Britain is “winning the intellectual argument” in favour of the kind of outward-looking, flexible and enterprising Europe he favours.

Want a fight?

Six years ago, after the last statement on the euro, promises on all sides to continue talking positively about joining were quickly forgotten. There is, however, a good chance that history won't repeat itself. If opinion is to be turned on the euro in good time for a referendum - 2006 or 2007 are possibilities - the campaign must start soon. The government has been further galvanised by the Tories' decision, bolstered by their powerful newspaper allies, to lead the charge against the forthcoming European constitution. Everyone agrees that it is no longer enough for the prime minister or the foreign secretary to make the occasional Euro-friendly speech from the political safety of some foreign capital. Ministers must go out and fight.

While the Conservative leader, Iain Duncan Smith, is walking with a new spring in his step, confident that most voters are as hostile to further European integration as he is, Mr Blair and Mr Brown are equally certain that he has boxed himself into a position they can portray as wanting to quit the European Union entirely. That, of course, is not official Conservative policy - the party is groping its way to advocating the kind of “variable geometry” Europe that was fashionable a decade ago - but Mr Duncan Smith, the old Maastricht treaty rebel, is an obsessive who in the past has argued that leaving Europe would be better than accepting any further loss of sovereignty. It is Mr Duncan Smith's misfortune to have helped reunite the most formidable double act in politics.

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