Beginning of the end for Blair?

Today is very possibly Tony Blair’s worst day in his nine years in office. The arrest of his chief fundraiser, Lord Levy, after an investigation into whether seats in Britain’s upper house of Parliament were sold in exchange for loans to political parties is a huge blow to Blair’s already battered reputation. The two men are legendarily close—they play tennis together and Blair has appointed Levy as his personal envoy to the Middle East—and there is rampant speculation that the next collar to be felt will belong to one A. Blair. If that happened, the pressure for him to resign for the good of the Labour party would almost certainly bring his premiership to the most ignominious of ends.

Whatever comes of this affair, it has further tarnished the reputation of the prime minister and politics in general. The last Tory government was kicked out of office by the voters because of sleaze—admittedly none of it reached anywhere near this high up—and if this Labour government goes the same way, it will reinforce the view that all politicians have their snouts in the trough. When Blair was accused in 1997 of exempting Formula One from a ban on cigarette sponsorship for sporting events in exchange for a million pound donation to the Labour party, he was trusted enough to ride out the storm with the declaration that he was a “pretty straight kinda guy.” Now with the public – and the media – inclined to think the worst of him, there’s no easy way out for Blair.