This Thursday, Britain's Labour Party government is in line for a decisive defeat in English local elections and total humiliation in the election of a mayor for London. It should be so different. The economy is strong, especially in the south-east, unemployment and inflation are low and, at long last, money in large amounts is going into public services.
Arguably, Mr Blair's party does not deserve the drubbing it seems likely to get in the local elections but the system must have its way. The 3,337 seats being contested on Thursday were last filled in 1996 when the Conservative Party's popularity was on the floor. Then, Labour won well. This week it will lose, not because the Conservative Party has been greatly strengthened - far from it - but because of apathy among Labour voters. Mr Blair will need no reminding that the Conservatives did far better in last year's European elections than their position in the opinion polls had indicated, for the simple reason that large numbers of Labour supporters stayed at home on polling day.
On Thursday, large numbers of Labour supporters seemed determined to abandon the comfort of home and vote against their party in the mayoralty election. Last week's polls give the independent, Mr Ken Livingstone, an extraordinary lead of 34 per cent while the Conservative, Mr Steve Norris is in second place with 17 per cent and the Labour party candidate, the hapless Frank Dobson, could only manage a poor third with 14 per cent, just two per cent above the Liberal Democrats. Even large scale apathy among Livingstone supporters - an unlikely event - will not deprive him of a commanding victory.
It is difficult to comprehend how Mr Blair, with almost total control of his party, could score such an embarrassing own-goal. He went along with his party's decision to bend the rules so as to deny Mr Livingstone the nomination, thinking wrongly that it would matter little with the electorate, and he failed dismally to produce a plausible alternative to Mr Livingstone. Mr Dobson was a poor Cabinet minister and a very reluctant mayoralty candidate; he might even finish fourth.
A combination of sweeping gains for the Conservatives and a triumphant Ken Livingstone undoubtedly will take some air out of the Labour Party's plans to get re-elected. And yet, a second term of government for the party remains a strong probability. A majority of over 170 in Westminster will not be overturned by a Conservative Party which has lost its touch, lost its luck and is stuck in the polls at a hopeless 30 per cent. Will the second term be better than the first? Will Mr Blair really grapple with the thorny issues of electoral reform, public service reform and the euro which have been banished from the Cabinet table until re-election is secured? Or will he continue to place presentation above policy and permanently postpone the promised new political order which brought him to power?