LONDON -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair strides onto the platform, shirt and skin softly gleaming, his gait erect, his manner proud, determined, with a measure of sorrow and a tinge of repentance; his appearance is heart-winningly boyish with his large blue eyes and easy smile, but now there is an appropriate map of lines and wrinkles on his face; his hair is receding and he needs to use glasses. These are the proper marks of responsibility and of loss of sleep to care and worry. Blair boasts of the "scars on his back," inflicted by those who oppose his heroic battle to reform sluggish and self-interested public services.

This was the man of the hour at the Labour Party's annual conference in the southern seaside town of Bournemouth this week. His appearance on stage prompted a loud ovation from the audience of party members and the traveling troop of media people. When he finished his speech, he received a seven-minute standing ovation. Amid handshakes all around, much of the press, some of the delegates, sighed: well, how amazing, he has pulled it off again. Blair is restored to the bosom of the Labour movement from where he will continue to lead to complete "the project.'

That version of events is the wishful thinking of, in particular, the more rightwing press. They want to trust him to keep the nation calm, not to let loose the chaos and retribution of those whom former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher battered. They want him as Labour leader, not so much because of his policies -- most couldn't care less about the "foundation hospitals" or "top-up fees" that are so exercising many in the Labour Party. No, they want him precisely because he is all style. That style, they think, is what keeps politics sweet in Britain.