Oligarchy rules world affairs!

Blair has been under fierce pressure in recent days, in part from members of his own party, since fresh doubts surfaced about his claim that Hussein's government possessed weapons of mass destruction. Katherine Baldwin of Reuters said, in her report Blair that risked his premiership and split his part by defying public opinion to send troops into Iraq. The failure however to discover any of Iraq's suspected chemical, biological or nuclear weapons -- the original Anglo-American motive of war -- put him in the dock.

Fueled by hostile press coverage -- the Sunday Mirror, for example, denounced Blair's earlier claims on Iraq as "rubbish" -- the charges seem to have struck a deep chord in Britain. Blair struggled far more than Bush to build public support for the war, and in a poll published in the Daily Telegraph, 44 percent of respondents said they felt misled on the weapons issue.

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International Development Secretary Clare Short's resignation speech and sequent statements inflicted serious damage on Prime Minister Tony Blair and his closest allies and brought issues to the fore that would plague the government in the months to come.

She now argued that her support for the war had been secured in return for promises made by Blair and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw that the UN would be given responsibility for setting up a postwar administration. She also claimed that advice from the Solicitor General that she had been shown, but which Blair was quashing, had raised serious questions as to the legality of the war and urged that the UN be brought in at the earliest opportunity.

What finally convinced her to resign was the way Blair and Straw had gone behind the Parliament to draw up, together with Washington, a resolution to be put to the UN which now gives the allies almost total control of Iraq's new government -- including the country's oil resources and the assigning of commercial contracts.

In a letter to Blair, Short wrote, "I agreed to stay in the government to help support the reconstruction effort for the people of Iraq. I am afraid that the assurances you gave me about the need for a UN mandate to establish a legitimate Iraqi government have been breached. The Security Council resolution that you and Jack have so secretly negotiated contradicts the assurances I have given in the House of Commons and elsewhere about the legal authority of the occupying powers, and the need for a UN-led process to establish a legitimate Iraqi government. This makes my position impossible."

It may be recalled that in her 15-minute resignation speech to parliament, she criticised the government for joining the US in "bullying the Security Council" into agreeing to "only a minor role for the UN", and warned that Britain was now making "a grave error in giving cover to US mistakes". She said: "I am ashamed that the UK government has approved the resolution tabled in New York."

In the Guardian interview, Short said, "The cabinet is now only a 'dignified' part of the constitution. It's gone the way of the Privy Council... various policy initiatives are being driven by advisers who are never scrutinised, never accountable, in No 10 [the prime minister's official residence].

"So you've got presidential style with a very narrow underpinning, with the built-in majority you get from the parliamentary system. I think we're getting a real deterioration in both scrutiny and the quality of decision making."

Another issue raised by Short explains her readiness to attack Blair's style of leadership. In her Guardian interview she made clear her desire to see the prime minister replaced as party leader. She said that she had discussed her resignation with Chancellor Gordon Brown, whom she is known to be close to politically, and he had tried to dissuade her. Her desire now was that Blair should only serve two terms in office and that an "elegant succession" be organised. "I think Tony Blair has enormous achievements under his belt and it would be very sad if he hung on and spoiled his reputation," she said.

In the backlash of her resignation, the party apparatus and a supportive media have been working hard to dismiss Short as a miffed woman motivated by rile and so dismiss the issues she raised.

Robin Cook, previously the most high-profile critic of Blair's support for Bush's war, defended the prime minister's governmental style, telling the Independent that "he had always found the Prime Minister accessible and patient". He said it was "odd" that Short had complained about power being in the hands of the premier and a handful of advisers when she was an ally of Brown, "who has achieved for the Treasury the same independence from No 10 that he himself has conferred on the Bank of England."

Firstly, her statements on Iraq raised serious constitutional issues as well as questions of international legality. Though dismissed by the government, her comments have been seized upon by Conservative Party leader Ian Duncan Smith who demanded that the government publish the Solicitor General's advice.

There is also the ever present danger for Blair -- those others more dangerous than the Tories would take up this demand. Antiwar sentiment in the British population has not gone away and hostility to Blair is widespread. Two days before Short's resignation speech, the prime minister was voted the most hated Briton in a Channel 4 poll -- beating his idol Margaret Thatcher into third place out of 100 nominees.

Secondly, whatever her intentions, what Short said about Blair's style of government not only placed a question mark over the future of the Labour Party but over parliamentary rule itself. Her account of bypassing Cabinet and other government departments confirms that Labour had been essentially destroyed as a political party. What remains of Labour is a rump dominated by a clique around Blair. Having lost well over half its membership, those who remain -- even when occupying leadership positions -- have no say over policy.

There is a name for the form of rule outlined by Short, which neither she nor any other bourgeois commentator would utter -- an oligarchy.

Blair declared his refusal to abide by the wishes of the people to be his governing principle. Short was one of those who supported him in this stand when he went to war in opposition to every conceivable expression of the popular will. But this does not mean that Blair himself calls the shots. He has his own masters. He and his clique -- Straw, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon, Home Secretary David Blunkett, et al -- are answerable to the most powerful sections of the capital, and to Washington as the prime representatives of the semi-criminal corporate elite that now rules world affairs.

Billy I Ahmed is a researcher