The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, sought to shrug off his government's mounting difficulties yesterday with a return to the rhetorical high ground and a renewed attack on "the forces of Conservatism. . . left and right".
Mr Blair's immediate target appeared to be those Labour peers who had allied with Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and cross-benchers to torpedo the Home Secretary's plans to limit the right to trial by jury.
The cross-party alliance backed a so-called "wrecking amendment" by 222 to 126, forcing Mr Straw to withdraw his Bill. But his determination to reintroduce the measure within weeks in the Commons yesterday brought fresh charges of government "arrogance."
Mr William Hague, the Conservative leader, said: "This is the House of Lords, remember, that they have changed and said they wanted. How arrogant of the government to say that when the Lords throws things out that it is completely unreasonable and they will get it through another way."
Ironically, the government's first defeat in the new-style House of Lords coincided with Thursday's publication of the Royal Commission proposals for a fully reformed second chamber which constitutional radicals dismissed as a waste of a historic opportunity.
In his speech in East London yesterday, Mr Blair said the crucial thing in politics was to have a vision and stick to it: "The daily headlines, the passing frenzies - and I've lost count of the number of times this or that week was supposed to be our toughest since taking power - all that comes and goes."
However, while the overall political landscape remains unchanged, the damaging headlines continue to challenge a government which has prided itself on the tightness of its control and the mastery of its presentation.
Even as he battled to overcome the crisis in the health service, Mr Blair found himself in fresh difficulties over the firmness or otherwise of his commitment to year on year increases which in six years would bring Britain's spending on health up to the European average.
After the previous week's problems over the decisions to send Gen Pinochet home and to allow Mike Tyson into Britain, the Home Office was back in the news this week with statistics showing crime on the up. Twenty four hours later the Prime Minister's relationship with Mr David Trimble hit an all-time-low as the Ulster Unionist leader told him that scrapping the RUC's Royal title "dishonoured" his government.
And the questions of honour and ethics were back in play yesterday following the government's decision to order an inquiry into TransTec, the collapsed engineering company founded by the former paymaster general, Mr Geoffrey Robinson - and as Labour MPs joined the chorus of criticism over the government's decision to proceed with the sale of spare parts for Hawk fighter jets to Zimbabwe.
The Labour MEP and wife of the former leader, Mrs Glenys Kinnock, expressed her concern that the sales could exacerbate the misery caused by conflict in the Congo. The shadow foreign secretary, Mr John Maples, said: "Tony Blair's decision to sell them parts for Hawk fighters shows what a shambles Labour's ethical foreign policy is in."