Weariness and fear that haunt ministers

The Labour party chairman, John Reid, has the reputation of being a safe pair of hands. Whenever there is a whiff of trouble, the Government's spin doctors send out Mr Reid to broadcast calming words. Last week he had to carry out yet another damage-limitation exercise – but it was he who had caused the problems in the first place. Looking pale, angry and fearful, he compared the scale of the terrorist threat facing London with the attacks in the US on 11 September 2001. Mr Reid was responding to suggestions from journalists that the Government had manufactured a crisis to justify an attack on Iraq. That is what made him angry. But even Mr Reid was unnerved, and the reason was he knew the precise nature of the threat the country faced.

There has not been a week like this last one since Tony Blair came to power in 1997. The fuel protests in the autumn of 2000 caused a comparable fleeting panic, but not on this scale.

This week Mr Blair and his senior ministers faced the frightening dilemma of how to respond to alarming intelligence reports. Should they close down Heathrow airport? How much information should be made available to the public?

Mr Reid was not alone in his erratic weariness. The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, recovering from a serious operation, could not hide his exhausted irritation at being summoned to the House of Commons to make a statement on the security threat. He would not give a "running commentary" he told MPs. The Home Secretary has a daunting in-tray during relatively untroubled periods – friends of Mr Blunkett have said that what makes the pressure of work even worse is the unexpected calls, usually relating to terrorist threats, in the middle of the night. Mr Blunkett is getting lots of those unexpected calls.

Last week's tensions were heightened by the growing realisation that a second UN resolution might not be attainable. The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, looked uneasy on the Commons front bench and in the television studio. Tony Blair himself endured one of the most hostile Prime Minster's Questions the day after he faced the decisions relating to the security threat at Heathrow. Some Labour MPs had anticipated another crusading performance, but he seemed to have neither the taste nor the energy for that.

Mr Blair had been subdued by the accumulating pressures, with some Labour MPs warning of "meltdown" in the party if he did not get a second UN resultion. Tentatively, they are comparing the highly charged atmosphere to the final days of Mrs Thatcher. Such comments are premature, but ministers are walking a high-wire act, and it shows. The obstacles are so frightening and unpredictable, the ministers most directly involved cannot hide their fear. It shows on their faces and in their eyes. They are too tired and worried to disguise their anxious exhaustion.