He has declared open season on himself

A few years ago now, a friend of mine was working in Europe as a correspondent for The Times. The paper announced confidently and with some pride - for he was a much admired writer - that in six months he would be taking up his new post as Washington correspondent. "Oh no he won't," I said to another friend. "They may think he's going, but they don't know him as well as I do. He hasn't the slightest intention of taking off for America." Nor did he: not least because Alan Clark had advised him that he would learn nothing of value there, based as it was on Chesterfields and Coca-Cola.

A few years ago now, a friend of mine was working in Europe as a correspondent for The Times. The paper announced confidently and with some pride - for he was a much admired writer - that in six months he would be taking up his new post as Washington correspondent. "Oh no he won't," I said to another friend. "They may think he's going, but they don't know him as well as I do. He hasn't the slightest intention of taking off for America." Nor did he: not least because Alan Clark had advised him that he would learn nothing of value there, based as it was on Chesterfields and Coca-Cola.

We can take a homelier illustration, of a husband who announces to his wife that he intends to leave the matrimonial home once little Emily is 16. He usually ends up being thrown out well before then, understandably so.

The life of a Prime Minister is more complicated, more subject to strange winds, unpredictable forces, than that of a restless husband or of a journalist who does not fancy taking up a particular foreign posting. With Mr Tony Blair, there is an additional complication. This is his habit, while being ostensibly frank and simple, of making matters even darker and more difficult. I do not think this is a matter of calculation, or not entirely, but more an incapacity in the Prime Minister to think quite straight. It is what the manufacturers of washing machines call fuzzy logic. If you asked Mr Blair the time, he would reply: "What time would you like it to be?" Or he would give you the wrong time and say afterwards that he had honestly believed he was doing the right thing.

This was to be seen in the section of his speech last week that dealt with Iraq. It has become a nest of terrorists since we invaded the country. It was not so before. For Saddam Hussein had a short way with dissenters. He would string them up, or worse.

Or take, again, Mr Blair's apology or, rather, non-apology. I am not, I may say, among those who either wanted or expected him to apologise for anything. Indeed, I believe the cult of the apology, which started in America, has grown completely out of hand. It has reached the stage when black people in Liverpool or Bristol are expected to join in apologies for this country's involvement in the slave trade.

All Mr Blair apologised for was faulty intelligence about weapons of mass destruction, whose definition, it subsequently turned out, he did not fully understand. But the intelligence, as the Butler and even (on a close reading) the Hutton report made clear, was less to blame than the use which the Government made of it. And, if the intelligence was so bad, why was Mr John Scarlett promoted so expeditiously?

In any case, as we all know, the weapons of mass destruction were a pretext for a course predetermined by Mr George Bush and acquiesced in by Mr Blair. It was successful with the British public, for a time anyway, but less so with the United Nations. No enlightenment there from Mr Blair, blacker darkness rather, and so it was too on Thursday evening.

The obvious truth is that he cannot claim not to be aiming for a fourth term if he is also promising to serve a full third term. It cannot be done - not if he is trying to be fair to Mr Gordon Brown or whoever is his successor. Perhaps fairness, whether to Mr Brown or to anyone else, is not the first thing in his mind. But again, the explanation which I favour is that the Prime Minister does not really think about these things. Mr Andrew Marr raised the matter with him, pointing out that there would have to be a party election first and that the new Prime Minister would then have to have time to play himself or herself in. Mr Blair responded as if the thought had only just occurred to him: party elections and playing-in periods were formalities which could easily be accommodated.

In 1955 Anthony Eden had just under two months as Winston Churchill's successor before he called an unexciting election, though his boldness and his initial success did him little good in the end. In 1964 Alec Douglas-Home had endured a year as Prime Minister before losing narrowly to Harold Wilson. In 1992 John Major had enjoyed 17 relatively successful months at No 10 (now largely forgotten) before the troubles of his full, five-year term.

It is of Mr Major that Mr Blair's latest ploy most reminds me. In the summer of 1995, it may be remembered, he resigned as party leader, though not as Prime Minister, and challenged any opposition, which turned out to be Mr John Redwood. The only people to question the constitutional propriety of this action - whether a politician could properly resign as party leader but continue as Prime Minister - were Enoch Powell and myself, but no one took any notice.

With Mr Blair, the circumstances are different but the motivation is the same: to eliminate speculation about his successor and to consolidate his position as leader. With Mr Major, the move failed to produce its intended effect. He survived as Prime Minister but his party was, if anything, even more troubled in 1995-97 than it had been in the previous three years.

Far from safeguarding his position, Mr Blair has succeeded in declaring open season on himself for the entire period of the third term, if it comes about. It may be that we shall witness some dark deeds or, at the very least, some sharp practices in the years or even the months that lie ahead. There was - or could have been - an illustration of sharp practice at last week's Nuremberg rally of the better sort.

A Labour Prime Minister can be challenged by means of a card vote, passed by a simple majority, at the party conference. The challenger must then secure the backing of 20 per cent of the parliamentary party, whereupon the contest is decided by the new version of the old electoral college (for it is one of the great myths of modern politics that New Labour has adopted a system of one member, one vote). There was no real chance that Mr Blair's leadership would be so challenged at Brighton. But the apparatchiks, to be on the safe side, laid down beforehand that the initiative had to come first from the required number of Labour MPs. For this the rules provide no warrant at all: it is the conference which has to act as the starting pistol, not the parliamentary party.

By making vaguely Labourist noises, Mr Blair succeeded in securing the good offices of the assorted Kevins and Dereks - they used to be Bills and Berts - who now control the card vote. This was shown in the debate on Iraq. It would have been demonstrated likewise if any malcontent had tried to challenge Mr Blair's position. He would be foolish to assume that this happy state of affairs will go on for ever.