The Week in Politics: Downing Street wobble was bigger than the world realised

It has been a momentous week at Westminster. I cannot remember such a dramatic one since the fall of Margaret Thatcher. Tony Blair survived Tuesday's critical Commons vote but it could easily have been much worse.

The "wobble" inside Downing Street was bigger than we realised in the outside world. Mr Blair feared he would need to rely on the votes of Tory MPs to win a Commons majority for war. That could have left him extremely vulnerable after the war, a presidential figure without the party anchor needed under our system.

Mr Blair delivered the speech of his life to the Commons on Tuesday. But the blunt truth is that many Labour MPs were dragooned into supporting him by threats that they could bring him down. "We forced people to look over the abyss; they didn't like what they saw," one minister told me.

The other high point of the week at Westminster was Robin Cook's resignation speech. This was as explosive as it gets, and all the more powerful because Mr Cook resigned on principle, without bitterness and without advertising it in advance like Clare Short. Incredibly, she remains in the Cabinet, but for how long? It suited Mr Blair to keep her on board in the run-up to Tuesday's vote. I have a feeling she will be overboard by the summer.

The Westminster air is full of "what ifs". Would we be here if Al Gore was US President or Gordon Brown was Prime Minister? No. Would the Labour rebellion have been bigger if Ms Short had resigned? Yes. Would Mr Cook have resigned if he was still Foreign Secretary? No.

Loyalist MPs patrolled the Commons corridors late on Monday, trying to neuter the impact of Mr Cook's superb speech. "Look at Hansard, 17 February 1998, column 907," I was told. Mr Cook, then Foreign Secretary, said: "It is vital that we win this confrontation because of the clear and real danger posed by Saddam's arsenals of terror ... The authority of the UN itself is at stake." Mr Blair could have made the same speech last week.

Mr Cook probably never got over his shock at being ousted from the Foreign Office in 2001. He was badly stitched up by Mr Blair over House of Lords reform. All this made it easier for him to walk.

People rarely resign while on their way up the political ladder. So my other hero of the week was John Denham, who quit as No 2 at Home Office. Last summer, when he reshuffled his Cabinet, Mr Blair rang Mr Denham and Peter Hain to tell them: "Don't worry – you're next in." Mr Hain won his place in the Cabinet last October; Mr Denham would have made it this summer. But I suspect Mr Denham might have his feet back on the ministerial ladder before too long.

When the war is over, Mr Blair's battles will only just be beginning. He will have to make peace with his bruised and battered party. "He should spend time thinking how to rebuild the Labour Party as well as Iraq," one minister said.

Mr Blair is already getting conflicting advice. If the war goes well, the "hawks" want him to use his strengthened authority to press on with radical reforms of public services and to call a euro referendum next spring. But the "doves" are warning that Mr Blair will "lose" his party unless he builds bridges, gives MPs and party activists more influence and adopts an openly redistributionist economic strategy.

Major repair work will also be needed with the European Union. Mr Blair's hopes of forming one side of an EU power triangle with France and Germany lie in shreds. The "blame France" game played well with his own MPs but will not be forgotten quickly in Paris.

France's view of Europe as a rival powerbase to the US conflicts with Mr Blair's vision of the EU as "a friend and partner of America", as he put it yesterday. He will have to stand up to George Bush on other issues – the Middle East, the UN's role in post-war Iraq, the environment – to convince other EU members his "partnership" is not a one-way street.

The danger is that the hawks in Washington, dismayed by the UN's failure to act over Iraq, will reject Mr Blair's multilateralist approach, leaving him stranded between an American rock and a European hard place. (Another "what if" is: will America travel the UN route next time? Don't bet on it).

The war will also shape policy on the euro. The more euro-cautious cabinet ministers believe the spectacular fall-out with France will prevent Mr Blair from "selling" the euro before the general election. The Prime Minister has other ideas. At his press conference in Brussels yesterday, he scotched the suggestion he would abandon full participation in Europe. "I am not less enthusiastic," he said. "The right way to handle these disagreements is not to turn our back on our other partners, but to engage with them and try to overcome the differences."

The cabinet agreed on Thursday that the Government would not provide a "running commentary" on the war to suit the endless demands of the 24-hour media. Government spokesmen, cautious at the best of times, have become even more reticent. Godric Smith, Mr Blair's spokesman, told us this week: "You can expect the Prime Minister will be meeting the people you would expect him to meet."

Perhaps Donald Rumsfeld-speak is infectious. My favourite Rumsfeld soundbite is: "There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns, that is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns; there are things we do not know we don't know."

I hope that's clear.

a.grice@independent.co.uk