Will the PM turn his back on Bush?

Labour’s 2001 election campaign masterminds started every day with a morning meeting born of a long tradition of fraternity between Labour and the Democrats. This is a relationship Mr Blair is now desperately trying to put on ice, as he orders his staff to stay away from Senator John Kerry’s campaign team until the end of the presidential elections in November.

The Democrats are looking to London for help and Mr Blair’s allies are itching to help Kerry unseat President Bush. New Labour was forged from ideas borrowed, or lifted wholesale, from Bill Clinton’s New Democrats. The two parties are cut from the same cloth.

Keeping them apart this election time will be an arduous but vital task for Mr Blair. Over the last two years, he has aligned himself with the White House perhaps more closely than any other prime minister. This time, he cannot afford to back the wrong horse.

One Labour source said: "We won’t be helping the Democrat campaign; we won’t be helping the Republicans. We have to sit this one out religiously."

Mr Blair can issue edicts that no-one must be seen attending the Democrat Convention in Boston this July - apart from Mr Alexander, the Cabinet Office minister expected to be given a licence to attend as an "observer" - but he cannot airbrush out links that already tie his party dangerously close to Kerry’s campaign.

That is to say, he cannot airbrush out Gordon Brown. The Chancellor has been an American politics junkie since attending the 1984 Democratic Convention. Later, he started to holiday in Cape Cod, an economists’ haven and the garden of Massachusetts, political home of Senator Kerry. The regular holiday crowd includes Larry Summers, Clinton’s last Treasury secretary and former tutor of Ed Balls, Mr Brown’s chief economic adviser. The idea of making the Bank of England independent was a thesis Balls learned from Summers.

Another Cape Cod regular is Senator Ted Kennedy, brother of John F Kennedy and elder statesmen of US politics. He was on television again last week, introducing his friend Mr Kerry to a roaring crowd of Democrats.

Brown, Kennedy and Kerry dined together four years ago at Soho House, a private London Club. It is here Mr Kerry, then senator for Massachusetts, is understood to have confessed presidential ambitions.

One of Mr Brown’s longest-standing friends in Washington is Mr Shrum, key adviser to Al Gore in his struggle with Mr Bush four years ago. He has now been enlisted by Mr Kerry as his speechwriter. Then there is Carter Eskew, an Al Gore aide, whom Mr Brown met recently in Washington to discuss strategy.

The final link in Mr Brown’s Democratic network is Ed Miliband, senior Treasury aide and brother of the schools minister, David Miliband.

He has just returned to London after a yearlong sabbatical at Harvard University - following the footsteps of Mr Balls. His education was political, as well as academic: during this time, he too is understood to have been granted access to Mr Kerry.

According to Treasury sources, Mr Brown’s former special adviser sent regular reports back to his mentor as Mr Kerry consolidated his lead in the race for the Democratic nomination.

While the Chancellor’s personal life is anchored in the beaches of Massachusetts, the same cannot be said for Mr Blair - who prefers Tuscany with his family to barbecues with economists.

Mr Blair has drunk just as deeply from the Democratic cup. In 1992, when Mr Clinton first seized the presidency, he was watched with near-adulation by both Mr Blair and Mr Brown, fresh from defeat under Neil Kinnock. Convinced that the self-styled "New Democrats" held the secrets to power, they both flew over in January 1993.

They were introduced to Mr Clinton by Sidney Blumenthal, a journalist who later joined Mr Clinton’s team and was charged with forging exceptionally close links with Labour. He remains a powerful, well-connected figure in Democrat politics.

Philip Gould, the Labour pollster, had worked on Mr Clinton’s campaign and had been sending regular dispatches to Mr Blair - and the 1997 Labour manifesto, Mr Clinton used to joke, may as well have had the stars and stripes on it for the amount it borrowed from the Democrats.

When Mr Blair walked into Downing Street, the US president felt a claim in that victory and each borrowed heavily from the other - soundbites, telephone polling, rapid rebuttal, remaining "on message", spin - all the ingredients of modern electioneering were devised, crafted and then honed by the two parties.

But in 2004, Mr Brown’s allies are in the ascendancy and the Clinton aides whom Mr Blair befriended have found themselves out of the picture. Mr Blumenthal backed the wrong horse, Howard Dean, which did not endear him to Mr Kerry.

Mr Gould’s US company is doing no work for Mr Kerry at all - and neither has the consultancy firm that he set up with Stan Greenberg, a senior adviser to Mr Clinton

It would be only too natural for the vastly-experienced Labour/Democrat team to reconvene for this November’s Presidential Election - allowing Labour to repay its favours to those Democrats who gave up their time for June 2001 general election.

And indeed, only a few months ago, it seemed that Labour had decided to dance around the impartiality clause - and pay a visit once more as a trio of Mr Blair’s closest advisers headed stateside.

Mr Alexander was joined by Ian McCartney, the Labour Party chairman and Pat MacFadden, Mr Blair’s political secretary, who met their Democratic counterparts.

This uncertainty flies in the face of Mr Blair’s penchant for interfering in overseas elections.

Diplomatic protocol rules out such electioneering, but Mr Blair just happened to be passing through Russia, Germany and Sweden during their elections - and obviously thought it would be rude not to stop by. But the US, this time, is a gamble even he cannot take.

At the back of Mr Blair’s mind will be a horrid image of the coalition for war with Iraq becoming a trio of election losers. On the eve of the invasion, it was Mr Bush and Jos Maria Aznar of Spain who flew to the Azores to demonstrate their international alliance.

Twelve months on, Mr Aznar is preparing to leave office and Mr Bush faces the prospect of defeat in November. Mr Blair could enter 2005 looking increasingly isolated, the sole apologist for the war and failures of reconstruction.

A successful Democrat presidency would only beef up the US investigation into intelligence failures, which is due to report in spring 2005.

The long date was set by President Bush, with a November election in mind. This is a hospital pass to Mr Blair, who is expected to call a British general election in May 2005, while the results of a US inquiry into intelligence failures may still be fresh.

Furthermore, the Kerry camp is already suggesting it wants to give more teeth to the Senate investigation, widening its remit so as to be more damaging to the Republicans, and by extension, Downing Street.

"If John Kerry becomes President, Tony Blair is isolated in the world on Iraq. He faces an American intelligence inquiry which John Kerry would almost certainly reconstitute," said Steve Morgan, a Labour adviser.

Such a scenario leaves Mr Blair with good reason to be ambiguous about the result of the election.

His heart may will the Democrats - but his head may well prefer a second Bush term.

Some believe this comes back to domestic politics - could Mr Blair be reluctant to find President Kerry too eager to revive the main relationship with Mr Gordon Brown?

TIES THAT BIND

MARGARET Thatcher and Ronald Reagan had huge mutual admiration but also shared a political and economic philosophy. In a letter to Mrs Thatcher, Mr Reagan wrote: I’ve always believed that life’s path is determined by a Force more powerful than fate. I feel the Lord has brought us together for a profound purpose, and that I have been richly blessed for having known you."

PRESIDENT George Bush Senior and John Major did not have the spark of Thatcher and Reagan, but maintained a reasonably close relationship in an effort to maintain transatlantic harmony and ensure the special relationship did not wither. The pair famously posed together with a cricket bat and baseball bat to indicate a shared interest in sport.

JOHN Major did not enjoy any kind of special relationship with Bill Clinton. A frost settled on London-Washington relations after Mr Major was accused of assisting Republicans in looking for "dirt" on Mr Clinton from his time at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. The Tories denied the claim but Mr Major was never forgiven by the Democrat president.

AFTER the problems with Mr Major, Mr Clinton’s backing for Tony Blair in 1997 was never in doubt. New Labour learned heavily from the modern electoral methods of Clinton’s Democrats and the Blair/Clinton axis was a powerful world force. Even after his two terms were over, Mr Clinton still showed up at Labour conference to lend his support to his old friend.