Zapatero's win puts PM in dock over question of trust

Before the Spanish general election, British ministers were quite happy to pay generous tributes to José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the country's Socialist leader. One minister even described him as "the new Tony Blair" and saviour of his party ­ but added swiftly that he had no chance of winning.

Now the Government must somehow forge a working relationship with the new Spanish Prime Minister, who marked his victory by accusing Mr Blair and President George Bush of organising a war "with lies".

Although Mr Blair did not intervene directly in Spain's election, it was an open secret that he wanted ­ and expected ­ José Maria Aznar's conservative People's Party to remain in power.

The difficulties of building bridges with Madrid are not Mr Blair's biggest headache, however. As the surprise result of the Spanish election sank in yesterday, his advisers realised that a crucial line had probably been crossed with huge implications for Mr Blair and other world leaders. If, as is claimed, al-Qa'ida was responsible for Thursday's terrorist attacks, then the rules of the war on terrorism have changed dramatically.

Mr Blair has already pencilled in a general election for May next year. After Madrid, the prospect that Islamic terrorists could target Britain during that period is a real one. "It's chilling," one Blair aide said.

The result in Spain creates a series of problems for Mr Blair. Even if Britain manages to keep al-Qa'ida at bay, the defeat of Mr Aznar's party delivers a chilling political message to Labour in Britain.

By supporting the Iraq war and blaming Eta for last week's outrage, Mr Aznar lost the trust of the Spanish people. Mr Blair already has a trust problem over Iraq, caused largely by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in that country. The fear in Labour circles is that the terrible events in Madrid will compound it.

The parallels are not exact. In Spain, nine out of 10 people opposed the war. In Britain, opinion was more evenly divided. But the similarities cannot be discounted. In his speech two weeks ago re-arguing the case for war from first principles, Mr Blair urged his critics not to question his integrity but accepted they could question his judgement. The unspoken worry in Downing Street is that people will now question both.

Mr Blair has always been haunted by the threat of a terrorist attack in London. It is his nightmare scenario.

It explains his utter determination to tackle the threats of rogue states and international terrorism, which aides say pre-dated the attacks in the US in September 2001. The Prime Minister believes he would be failing in his duty if he did not act on intelligence about terrorist threats. He reflected on his acute dilemma in the same speech, asking persuasively: "Would you prefer us to act, even if it turns out to be wrong? Or not to act and hope it's OK? Suppose we don't act and it turns out to be right? How forgiving will people be?"

His allies feel that Mr Blair cannot win. Labour opponents of military intervention in Iraq are already warning that the lesson of Madrid is that the war has made London a terrorist target. The Blairites will argue, with some justification, that "they would say that, wouldn't they?" But the MPs' warnings may well strike a chord with the public.

More serious is what Alastair Campbell called "this huge stuff about trust" in his diaries, disclosed to the Hutton inquiry. It is not only that people will not trust what Mr Blair told them about Iraq but that a general corrosion sets in and they don't believe him on anything.

Take public services. On Saturday, Mr Blair tried in another speech to talk up a "feel-good factor" about public services, contrasting what he called people's personal optimism with the mood of national pessimism. People might have believed a "things are getting better" message from Mr Blair in 1999, but they might not buy it today.

Similarly, will the voters trust a pledge from the Prime Minister that he will not raise taxes if he wins a third term? This is exercising minds at the Treasury. So there is little wonder that the issue of trust is regarded in Downing Street as the biggest threat to Mr Blair.

Yesterday the Prime Minister held what No 10 called a "warm and friendly" 15-minute telephone call with his new Spanish counterpart. But they will have a lot to talk about when they meet in the next six weeks.

Mr Zapatero's pledge to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq gives Mr Blair another post-war problem. His election has also changed the delicate balance between Old and New Europe, just when Britain was hoping the wind would blow its way with 10 new members joining the EU club in May.

A Socialist government in Madrid could also make it harder for Mr Blair to win his battle for economic reform in Europe, a prerequisite for British membership of the euro. Spain will now instinctively link hands with France and Germany rather than Britain, perhaps making it harder for Mr Blair to cement a new three-way partnership with the two nations that drive the EU engine.

The Spanish election might also improve the prospects of a breakthrough on the stalled EU constitution, which saw Spain and Poland pitted against France and Germany in a row over voting rights. Mr Blair would rather the issue remained in the long grass until after the general election.

On terrorism, Mr Blair feels that all he can do is what he calls "the right thing" and face the consequences. Perhaps future generations will thank him, even if this one does not. But the game is not over yet. Madrid has raised the stakes but it will also raise the Prime Minister's determination to defeat "the new menace" facing the world.