Word: mandelson
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Tony Blair's closest political ally, Peter Mandelson, has been forced for a second time to resign from Blair's cabinet under the cloud of scandal. How badly will this hurt Blair as Britain prepares for election in the spring...
...Obviously the resignation of Blair's best-known intimate can't be good for the prime minister. And Mandelson, of course, was at the center of planning the reelection campaign and keeping the government on message. But Labor remains 10 or 15 points ahead in the polls, and this is unlikely to affect the outcome of the election. In fact, one of the charges against Labor that sometimes sticks in the minds of voters is that the party is arrogant and a little sleazy, so by decisively firing Mandelson, Blair could actually improve his own image. And it stops...
...I.R.A. did not hammer its Semtex into plowshares--and refused even to offer a date when it would start. So Mandelson put the Ulster government in a kind of suspended animation, a political trick that may let him resolve the disarmament issue--"decommissioning," in peacemaking jargon--without destroying Northern Ireland's fragile coalition. But that will be a difficult trick. With recriminations rising and momentum flowing backward, Ulster's peace process is facing its worst crisis in years...
...Irish Republic's government and traditional republican supporters in the U.S. are twisting arms too, and it may be working. The same day Mandelson announced the suspension, the body in charge of decommissioning reported "valuable progress" from the I.R.A.'s representative, who declared that the group will now "consider how to put arms and explosives beyond use." That was too elliptical to keep Mandelson from pulling the plug, but it offers hope for a relatively short hiatus...
Suspending the government has raised the stakes for both sides. The unionists will not go back into government until some guns are forfeited; the I.R.A. will not give up any weapons while there is direct British rule. Mandelson's deep freeze may preserve Northern Ireland's government, but it is still a long way from saving the peace...