Blair's Britain in constitutional crisis, those with power must remove him

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Tony Blair's survival is an affront to our constitution

Those with the power to remove the Labour leader must act

Jonathan Freedland
Monday September 13, 2004
The Guardian

....(Tony Blair's public) trust question leads to a concern that should transcend left and right. It is far bigger than party politics. Put simply, the country is in the grip of a constitutional crisis. That may sound overheated: there are no judges hanging from lamp-posts, no tanks rolling down Whitehall. Yet the phrase is not mine. It is the word of the hour among that most restrained set - the mandarin class. In the past week, I have heard from three different and wholly credible sources that Britain's senior civil servants, present and former, are shocked at what they see as a gross breakdown in our system of government.

The way they see it, Blair clearly misled the country into war....The Sir Humphreys have waited for each of the checks and balances of our unwritten constitution to do its work and ensure the PM is held accountable. They expected the cabinet and then parliament to restrain the PM, but both rolled over. The mandarins half-expected the press to succeed where the official estates had failed. The press has done much - but, partly chastened by the Hutton experience, has never fully followed through.

THE ESTABLISHMENT, INCLUDING THE JUDICIARY, IS CONTEMPLATING THE FACT THAT A PRIME MINISTER WITH A LARGE MAJORITY CAN MORE OR LESS DO ANYTHING HE LIKES. ALL THOSE CONSTITUTIONAL BRAKES ARE IMPOTENT IF HE IS DETERMINED ENOUGH. AND BLAIR IS DETERMINED, EVEN BRAZEN. This is a man whose response to two years of questions over his integrity was a holiday as the house guest of Silvio Berlusconi.

This need to see some accountability, to be confident the system works, is what motivates the silver-haired elders. They have no ambition or personal animus against Blair, yet they would like to see him gone. Every day he remains is an affront to the constitution, a demonstration that our country is not governed properly....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1303034,00.html