BRITAIN: The embattled PM has his eye on a 10-year stint in office, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
Things, it seems, just keep getting worse for British prime minister Tony Blair.
The news that Scotland Yard is investigating three complaints propelled the "cash for peerages" row back into the headlines last night, just as Labour's National Executive thought to close down the controversy by announcing it will resume responsibility for all the party's funding in order to make it more transparent.
As if to rise above the domestic squalor, Mr Blair took himself back onto the world stage - rhetorically at least - to defend allied actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, declaring the "war on terror" a clash about civilisation and, ultimately, "a battle about modernity".
Alas, for a leader driven by higher moral purposes, the media classes remained fixated with New Labour's thoroughly modern habit of secretly raising multi-million pound loans in an obvious attempt to circumvent the rules on the disclosure of donations by which Mr Blair himself had promised to clean-up politics.
It is all deeply damaging. But is it fatal? And will an embarrassed Mr Blair now feel minded to heed The Guardian's suggestion that he should prepare to leave office later this year, rather than risk "becoming a leader without purpose beyond power"?
Gordon Brown will deliver his 10th budget in the Commons this afternoon, doubtless hoping it will be his last. Many Labour MPs likewise will be praying there is prophecy in that Economist front cover foretelling the last days of Blair. And while ready to mock the pretensions of Conservative leader David Cameron - who by tradition replies to the budget statement for the opposition - they will know the truth in the Tory charge that this will be "a budget for Brown" as much as for Britain.
In between the characteristic rapid-fire dispersal of statistics attesting to Brown's abolition of the old "boom and bust" economic cycle, they will listen for any hint of the new and distinctive agenda with which the mighty Gordon intends to follow regime change in Downing Street.
Some cynics even wonder if the chancellor might find a tax break for initiatives promising reform of the honours system and greater transparency in public life.
Not, of course, that Mr Brown would think (or need) to remind anyone of the disastrous revelations which in a week have sent Mr Blair's personal ratings plummeting and persuaded seven out of 10 voters that his government is as "sleazy" as the Major administration ejected from office with such relish and contempt in 1997.
Tony Blair will suffer through it all, smile fixed on his face, ready with the by now traditional pat on the shoulder to congratulate his brilliant chancellor on another job well done. And behind the smile, the icy realisation that for MPs and the commentariat alike, today's clash between Brown and Cameron really will represent "the future". However, barring some spectacular new scandal, perhaps not yet a while.
Mr Blair has a reasonably high estimate of his own unique role in making Labour re-electable, vanquishing the Tories over three elections and, remember this, setting his would-be successor still on course for a historic fourth term.
The mocking laughter from the Tory side cannot mask the fact that Mr Cameron's frenetic 100-day "honeymoon" has come and gone with his party still not commanding much higher levels of support that at the last election. In such conditions it is hard to imagine Mr Blair disposed to scurry off-stage under a cloud of suspicion, "tainted" like Harold Wilson before him, with only Iraq competing to define his famed "legacy".
Which brings us to the nub of Mr Brown's problem. To justify going early, Mr Blair would need some story other than the one currently dominating the headlines.
In the absence of some great new achievement, and few can think what it might be - peace in Iraq? world class standards finally achieved in the National Health Service? - the belief of many Labour insiders is that Mr Blair will limp on to the natural cut-off point represented by his 10th anniversary in power in May next year.
That will elicit a groan from the Brownites, who will reasonably argue that a protracted departure now risks inflicting further damage on Mr Brown's eventual inheritance.
But then, as some of the chancellor's inner circle themselves fear, protecting Mr Brown's inheritance is hardly Mr Blair's highest priority.