LONDON -- As the old year turns, life is looking a little brighter for the besieged British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his team, thanks to a few lucky breaks.
This has been a miserable 12 months for Blair. Everything went a bit wrong. The Iraqi invasion victory was soured by the difficult aftermath and the apparent absence of weapons of mass destruction. His European policy began to go badly awry. The peace process in Northern Ireland was halted as extremism strengthened there. The economy drifted along, with rising levels of debt and taxation.
Blair's plans for reforming the funding of universities and hospitals ran into a wall of opposition. A huge inquiry -- yet to report -- threatened to implicate Cabinet ministers in the suicide of a senior government weapons expert. The political opposition, the Conservatives, swapped a weak leader for a stronger one, thus turning up the political pressure.