One of the legacies of the Iraq war is that, possibly in the future, a more democratic government serving the demands of the people and dedicated to rebuilding the crumbling country will come to power - hopefully, not only in Iraq, but in Britain too.

Labour’s trouncing in the recent Brent East by-election, the first defeat in 15 years in the first serious test for the government since the Iraq war, and in a territory that was considered a Labour stronghold, is another substantial blow for Tony Blair. Already suffering in the polls from the controversy over David Kelly and the reasons for war in Iraq, the Prime Minister is now facing another war - this time to restore his image as a leader the British people feel they can trust.

Many British newspapers - may be somewhat prematurely - have sounded the death knoll for the Blair government after the Liberal Democrats’ sensational victory in Brent East, with the general consensus in the media being that this defeat was the beginning of the end. History always looks back in retrospect at significant turning points at which governments fall; and while, in the future, Brent East may be viewed as the turning point for the British people, Blair’s culture of spin, particularly with regard to the Iraq war and the David Kelly affair, added to continuing failures in public service reform, and broken manifesto promises, have slowly been consuming the government throughout the recent months.

In fact, it was Tony Blair’s public reputation that was highlighted by the disastrous defeat in Brent East, the result of which comes out of a climate of mistrust that has been dominant since the Hutton inquiry began. Disillusioned Labour voters in the Brent East by-election went to the polls to deliver their verdict on the war on Iraq and, particularly, Tony Blair. It was a defining moment for the British premier who has been told in no uncertain terms what his own voters think about him. Many are linking the Labour defeat directly with Tony Blair’s decision to go to war with Iraq and the ongoing Hutton inquiry, seeing that the Brent East by-election was Labour’s first test in the polls since the Iraq conflict started. The massive 29% swing to the left-wing Liberal Democratic party in the September 18 by-election is the largest for almost a decade and is described by many British political experts as one of the most amazing shifts in the British electoral history.

Winning by more than a thousand votes, Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather won the Brent East poll by overturning a huge majority of over thirteen thousand votes, marking Labour’s first loss of a Commons seat in a by-election in 15 years.

Time and again during the election campaign, the key issues of confidence in Blair and the public hostility to the war and the way the prime minister coerced Britain into it emerged in Brent East.

The upshot of this defeat may just be that Labour backbenchers start asking penetrating questions about the party itself and their leader’s line of attack.

Labour’s benches are already growing more rebellious day after day as Mr. Blair attempts to thrust through controversial policies that are related to foundation hospitals and tuition fees while many MPs are increasingly discontented with various plans he is preparing to unleash on a now very suspecting British public. These Labour MPs are concerned that unless the fading trust in the government can be restored quickly through more popular policies, it will have disastrous consequences for them in the next general election, causing many voters to turn to the opposition - either the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats. A recent survey by the Guardian suggests that one in four backbenchers think their leader should quit.

During the Liberal Democrat annual conference in Brighton, after their glorious triumph in Brent, Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy delivered a vicious speech in which he attacked the government, seizing on the open suspicion over Iraq by accusing a small group around Tony Blair of influencing those in power and coercing the country into an ever increasingly unpopular war. Playing on the growing mistrust of Blair’s regime as a major tactic to win votes from a disillusioned electorate, Kennedy also reminded the conference of the government’s controversial dossier about the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

But whether Charles Kennedy has the personal charisma to be considered by voters as the man to actually lead the country remains to be seen. Both he and Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith are viewed by many as no real challenge to Tony Blair; however, the Iraq war may help Kennedy’s popularity surge.

While Blair’s nerves may be frayed, in Washington they must be getting even more nervous at the White House. Worrying the Bush camp across the Atlantic comes the news that retired General Wesley Clark, on paper the perfect candidate to challenge Bush in the upcoming 2004 elections, is actually ahead of the President in the polls. Playing on the chaos and US casualties in Iraq, and mostly basing his campaign on issues of security and war, Clark is the ideal man to unseat Bush.

With another US fatality in Iraq every day that passes, the political temperature is slowly rising for Bush in Washington, as across the Atlantic his closest ally is already feeling the heat which is almost at boiling point in Britain.

Having admitted recently in a television interview that his personal popularity had taken a “battering,” Tony Blair went into his 10th annual party conference, which took place in Bournemouth on September 28. Defiantly, Mr. Blair said he was right to go to war in Iraq - although no weapons of mass destruction have been found - and had no intention of resigning his post despite the latest opinion polls indicating increasing unhappiness among the British people and his own party backbenchers over his premiership.

Latest opinion polls, receiving major coverage in the UK media over the past two weeks, cited that the popularity of both the Labour party and its leader have plummeted. A notable Mori poll for the Financial Times suggests that 50% of respondents believe the time has come for the prime minister to give way to someone else. Not since 1987, during Margaret Thatcher’s premiership and Neil Kinnock’s Labour leadership, has Labour been so low in the polls.

Jibes including “war criminal” were thrown at Mr. Blair as he was criticized by his public over the government’s policy on Iraq during his visit to a new children’s playground.

While Mr. Blair was being heckled in Southampton, the first major protest demonstration against the war since the fall of Saddam Hussein took place in London. Demos have continued throughout the Labour Party conference. “No more lies, no more war” was the slogan of Saturday, September 28, as around twenty thousand protesters from around the United Kingdom invaded London. This, the fifth protest this year against Britain’s involvement in Iraq, was taking place just as demonstrations began in major cities in Europe, America and across the planet. Yet, Blair managed to get through this conference week pretty much unscathed, despite admitting in his keynote speech he now faces a crisis of confidence.

These protests show people want to take a stand, and the Brent by-election gives some indication of the message they want to get across. If the government didn’t listen before, the Brent East by-election has certainly made them sit up and take notice of the power the people have - not only the power to demonstrate, but also the ability to depose. Blair continues to justify his decision to take the country to war in Iraq. He has asked history to judge him; but the British people will judge him too, and history may find that it was Blair’s decision to go to war that eventually forced the longest-ever serving Labour prime minister out of Downing Street.