If the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, read newspapers while on holiday, he must have wondered what exactly his government was up to while he was away, Rachel Donnelly writes. Headlines in the British press will certainly make him think twice about holidaying abroad again.His was the longest holiday taken by a British prime minister since the second World War. It was greeted with mixed reactions at home. Supporters might point out that Mr Blair's honeymoon with the electorate is far from over, and endless photographs of the Blairs on holiday may have bolstered the presidential aura he, and they, seem keen to sustain. But public feuding between the deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, and the Minister without Portfolio, Mr Peter Mandelson, reached the front pages of the British press.
It may have been the "silly season" of August, as Mr Prescott said, but following his comparison of Mr Mandelson to a crab in a jar, Mr Blair's press secretary, Mr Alastair Campbell, is reputed to have said he will never again take a holiday at the same time as his boss.
On his return from France yesterday, Mr Blair headed for Chequers "to acclimatise" himself. No doubt he will have been aware of the Mail on Sunday's warning: "The honeymoon is over, normal politics have resumed," and the Sunday Telegraph which declared: "When the party is left to its own devices . . . the party cannot operate efficiently in Blair's absence."
Taking personal charge of the devolution campaign in Scotland will be Mr Blair's first priority. He is to visit Scotland next week to head the campaign for a devolved parliament, while increasingly vicious revelations about the Labour Party in the west of Scotland rumble on.
The Scottish Secretary, Mr Donald Dewar, and the Chief Whip, Mr Nick Brown, moved quickly to suspend the Labour MP, Mr Tommy Graham, following the suicide of Mr Gordon McMaster. But next month's report on the Glasgow council's Labour group could further sour the wounds of Labour politics in Scotland even further.