THE OLD saying about a week being a long time in politics perhaps needs amending - as Tony Blair discovers that the political climate can go from sunny to grim in just days.

For just as he savours the Staffordshire South East by-election triumph and returns from America after getting the red carpet treatment for a Prime Minister in waiting, he finds the old guard tripping him up.

Shadow Transport Minister Clare Short undoes his bid to make Labour the party of middle class by safeguarding it from tax grabs - when she states that people on her £34,00O-a-year income should pay more. Next, ex-deputy Labour leader Roy Hattersley digs up Tony's "extremist" past and he is backed by Rodney Bickerstaffe, leader of the giant Unison trade union.

And, for good measure, the grand old lady of the Left, erstwhile Blackburn MP, Baroness Barbara Castle, warns that Labour must not capitulate to Wall Street and the City through co-operation.

Thus far, such reminders that socialist "old" Labour has not been altogether seen off by the Blairite revolution seem to have done nothing to dent the party's soaraway opinion poll ratings.

But come the real poll, his opponents will make meat of them - as they are doing now - and the nagging doubt at the back of the voters' minds to whether Labour has really changed its spots may get loud enough to make a real impact on where their "X" goes.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.