Britain: The Blair Problem; He weathered a rough week. But talk has turned to who will replace him.(Cover Story)

Byline: Stryker McGuire, With William Underhill and Gary Meenaghan

Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former communications czar, once griped to NEWSWEEK that, if you believed British newspaper headlines, "Tony's 'worst week ever' comes along every 4.5 weeks." He'd scoff at such stories, then file them away.

Indeed, last week Blair, unlike his ally George W. Bush, seemed to have miraculously sidestepped criticism over his government's prewar intelligence estimates of Iraqi WMD. An inquiry led by Lord Brian Hutton exonerated the prime minister and his government from allegations that they had deceived the British public in the run-up to war, and instead directed its most scathing comments toward the BBC, prompting the resignation of the reporter who made the accusations and two top executives. A day earlier Blair had beat back rebellious elements in his own Labour Party over a controversial bill that would require university graduates to pay a bigger chunk of their tuition. It seemed a denouement so sweet that Campbell could have scripted it only in his dreams.

It wasn't sweet, however. Blair survived his week from hell--but the chatter around London is, for how long. With his political power ebbing, along with public trust, seasoned politicians are placing bets as to whether (and when) he will step down--and who might succeed him.

Blair's problem is that last week's victories were more apparent than real. Hardly a blanket absolution, the Hutton report narrowly concluded only that the prime minister and his inner circle had not sought to mislead the public by ordering that a September 2002 intelligence dossier on Iraq be "sexed up," as the BBC alleged. Though a relief for Blair, the report did little to assuage popular doubts. A poll following the Hutton verdict found that 49 percent of the public believed the inquiry was a "whitewash." Nor was Blair's win in the tuition-fees fight undiluted good news. Victory came by a mere five votes, despite his parliamentary majority of 161. Worse, he owed that slender margin not to his own clout but to his rival and presumed heir apparent, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

Blair, 50, and Brown, 53, have been uneasy partners ever since they shared a cramped office in 1983, their first year as M.P.s. They competed for the party leadership in 1994. As Blair's de facto No. 2, the "Iron Chancellor" has gotten credit for Britain's long-running economic boom. Meanwhile, backbench rebels have steadily gained strength, and Brown now controls enough of them to make or break legislation, as he just demonstrated. As the columnist Peter Riddell wrote last week in The Times of London, Blair "is no longer dominant in his own government, or in his own party."

Hence the various scenarios making the rounds of Britain's political establishment. One favored version: Blair leads his party to a third consecutive victory at the polls sometime next year, an achievement ...