"Blair's folly." That was the advance billing - the headline warning to the British Prime Minister that the new political term was finally under way.
Months after their election defeat the Conservatives were at last to elect their leader and set about the business of Her Majesty's Opposition. More ominously perhaps for Mr Blair, the opposition within Labour's ranks was beginning to flex its muscle.
Immediately after the party's historic victory on June 7th, Mr Tony Benn cheerfully predicted second-term Labour MPs would prove a lot less biddable. On the morning of Tuesday, September 11th, that threat was writ large in Mr Tam Dalyell's assessment of a "seismic shift" in attitudes inclining Labour MPs much more to rebellion.
"The feeling of 'We must not do anything to rock the boat' has diminished, if not evaporated," declared the fiercely independent-minded MP and "Father of the House". The object of his ire was Mr Blair's anticipated backing for the US President, Mr Bush's, "Son of Star Wars" missile defence system.
With some 200 Labour MPs opposed to the plan, Mr Dalyell warned colleagues they could face deselection by activists if they supported Mr Blair - declaring resistance to the "dangerous folly" of the US proposals "more important than keeping this Prime Minister in No 10 Downing Street".
Mr Dalyell's pronouncements in an article in the London Independent would have made interesting reading for trades union leaders and activists enjoying breakfast that morning in their Brighton hotels. The comrades were already bracing themselves to give Mr Blair "a rough ride" that afternoon, when he arrived to explain the government's thinking on increased private sector involvement in the running of Britain's hospitals and schools.
Dire warnings of industrial disputes and a second "winter of discontent" may have been over-cooked. But having watched Labour sweep all before them, and the Tories disappear up their own fundaments, there was at last the making of some real political tension. And while missile defence may not have been immediately uppermost in their minds, Mr Dalyell's antipathy to Anglo-American defence policy would undoubtedly find a resonance among the delegates to the TUC Congress and pointed-up a likely second front of internal opposition.
None could have known how swiftly that agenda would melt away in the furnace of horror and outrage at the atrocities in the US just hours later; that by close of play this year's Congress would be effectively over, Britain's support for American defence strategy consolidated, and Mr Blair confirmed as lead coalition-maker in support of the retaliatory plans even then taking shape in the minds of America's military and intelligence experts.
Some Tory commentators may be grudging, defining Mr Blair at his best in the supporting role but without ultimate responsibility for decisions yet to be taken. However, there is little doubt that the Sun presently speaks for Britain in praising Mr Blair as a man "who knows instinctively what to do - and do it right".
Within Labour ranks and beyond there is anguished concern that innocent civilians should not fall victim to an ill-conceived or indiscriminate US response. On the right there is doubt shared with Ms Clare Short about declarations of a "war" which as yet may appear to lack precise and achievable aims and which might continue without end.
Among the public at large there is alarm, too, at still-random government hints of possible future chemical attacks - and a willingness to see Mr Osama bin Laden "brought to justice" coupled with fearful wonder as to the consequences for America's leading ally should Mr Bush ultimately get him "dead" rather than "alive". In all of this there are profound dangers for Mr Blair. However, as in Kosovo, so again now, the Prime Minister taps into the deep instincts of a British people who still to a considerable degree define themselves by their own past experience of war.
The polls certainly suggest none of the "moral equivalence" ministers fear might serve as pretext for inaction as the forces of terror acquire still-greater global capacity and ambition.
In a letter to this newspaper last week Mr Trevor Kirwan recalled John F Kennedy's famous trip to Berlin, adding: "Today we are all Americans." Mr Blair couldn't have put it better.