Tony Blair's double act

Tony Blair, whose every gesture and garment are choreographed, is cutting a changed figure, and not just because he has a developing midriff that disrupted the hang of his suit as he shook hands with French president Jacques Chirac at their talks before the European Summit.

Blair is increasingly casting himself as the European and international statesman, leaving more of the running of Britain to those who hope to succeed him.

Much appears designed to ease the handover to his anointed heir, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, and to sweeten the hostile left wing of his Labour Party. The ability of the left to block Blair's domestic policies is much greater since the general election on May 5 and they can also disrupt the planned power transfer to Brown, who would have to face an internal Labour election.

Two foreign roles are providing Blair with a stage. Britain holds the presidency of the G8 this year and, from July 1 for six months, the rotating presidency of the European Union. Blair has promised to use both to bring change to Africa, to climate change and to Europe itself.

On Europe, as his "sharp" exchanges with Chirac indicated, the British presidency could be stormy. With the G8, as its annual summit in Gleneagles in Edinburgh in two weeks will show, there may also be storms. In Edinburgh Blair will have another image problem - a clash of styles with Bob Geldof and his Live8 demonstrators.

But his more serious long-term problem is how he now defines his relationship with the United States and what he can do to shrug off the "Bush's poodle" tag that has stuck since the Iraq war. It is a serious bone of contention not just with the Labour left, but with a lot of the party mainstream.

The Blair-Bush standoff was already apparent two weeks ago when the peripatetic Blair was fleetingly in Washington. Before he left London he made loud demands for concessions from the US on aid for Africa and climate change. He left the White House with a bit of window-dressing but not much else.

The G8 agreement on debt relief helped soften the blow but Edinburgh will no doubt make it apparent once again how little influence Blair has on President Bush, for all his ultra-loyalty over Iraq.

Blair's public irritation with US intransigence may be real - but it may also be a sop to his domestic opponents.

Blair still has a theoretical House of Commons majority of 65, but that contains a sizeable group of hostile left wingers who are ready to vote with the opposition, particularly on some high profile issues such as identity cards.

The midriff, a reminder that Blair is ageing and his health has been uncertain, his narrow majority, and the fact that he has already committed himself to standing down, are all important factors in the change in his style. During the election campaign Blair made a show of humility, recognising the hostility directed at him personally, promising to listen more, and carefully pushing Brown - for years a very jealous rival, - into the limelight.

The two men, once acolytes of erstwhile Labour leader John Smith, who began the modernisation of the Labour Party before he died, struck a deal for the leadership which gave Blair, the more charismatic, first hit at power, with a promise of a handover once their party was established. Their later bitterness turned on Blair's decision to cling to power. By the time the election was called, it was open warfare.

With opinion polls showing Labour losing popularity, they were pushed into a new agreement by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. This blunt northerner, a former trade union leader, took them to dinner and was reported to have verbally bashed their heads together, warning them that they were going to lose the election. They orchestrated a saccharine display of togetherness for the campaign. The extent to which they were organised on to joint platforms was comically colour coded, Blair wearing a blue tie when a right-wing policy was pushed, Brown always a red one; Blair switching to red, but a paler shade than Brown's; then the two of them appearing in almost matching red ties with a blue over-pattern.

The double act worked - just. Blair said that the London borough where he lived before becoming Prime Minister was his litmus test. It contains two constituencies - Islington South, where a popular MP, Chris Smith, retired, was held by only 848 votes, a 12.1 swing against Labour, while North was retained by 6716 because the incumbent MP, Jeremy Corbyn, a left winger always hostile to Blair policies, is hugely popular. Neither was a Blairite triumph. The need for more humility, more listening was evident.

Since the election Blair has kept his promise to loosen his much criticised iron grip on the Cabinet, bringing Brown back to the Labour Party national executive, from which he excluded him in 2003, and increasing the roles of senior Cabinet members Brown, Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary and Prescott, who is Deputy Prime Minister.

To be able to secure the handover of the leadership, Blair has to square both his and Brown's policies with his left backbenchers who dislike the policies on education, health and immigration, as well as his foreign policy.

Hence, since the election, Blair usually wears the red tie that sealed the Blair-Brown pact.

As well as Blair's own demand for concessions from Europe and from the US, his closest allies are sent out on the stump or, rather, into the columns of the British press. Blair's Environment Secretary, Margaret Beckett, for one, has written critically of the US in the left-of-centre Independent.

Whether the orderly succession Blair has said he wants is achieved through this long dance of the press releases time will tell - but he has other aims in sight. One is, no doubt, his self-confessed desire to make a mark on history. Another his own future. He is unlikely to return comfortably to the back benches.

Perhaps what is happening is a Blair display of his talents for the job market. He will, of course, be able to send his wife, Cherie, back to work as a highly priced lawyer. But he too will need to earn a crust, if only to maintain the post-retirement London home they bought for $9.3 million last year.