LEADER or liability? The regulation grey suits that Tony Blair keeps for London business were swapped for a more easy-living blue one that he seems to reserve for the North-East, and yesterday the Blair caravan toured his constituency of Sedgefield.

From outside that caravan, Iraq would seem to dog his every move. It prevents him moving forward and, inevitably, will bring him down.

Labour has worked in many respects: education, primary in particular, has improved greatly; SureStart is an immense success; the health service is no longer a basket case; the economy and especially job creation has never been so rosy - a DVD player is within the grasp of practically everyone who cares about such things whereas even under Margaret Thatcher a video was a great aspiration.

Iraq drowns it all out. Has done for a year now: the sickening suicide of Dr David Kelly through to the abhorrent treatment of prisoners. The June 30 handover is a beacon of hope - but will another handpick of US placemen backed by the US army look like progress to a Shi'a militant in Najaf?

Come November should George Bush follow Spain's Jose Maria Aznar out of office, Mr Blair would look isolated on the world stage.

And it's reached a sorry state when a Prime Minister cannot condemn a newspaper editor for fabricated evidence because the PM has himself been accused of the very same thing.

Yet yesterday Mr Blair appeared as relaxed as I've seen him.

There are times when his body is in Sedgefield, but his mind is a continent elsewhere. Yesterday from his arrival in the sunshine at the Ferryhill Ladder Centre, all of him was present, appreciating a remarkable community project.

He'd been on the road two days, away from the Westminster village, talking to real people (although 'tis true that if they're too real they don't get too close). Real people talk health, education and anti-social behaviour - "the issues that affect their real lives", said one advisor.

Iraq, apparently, is not playing on the doorsteps in the coming elections. "It's quite sad, really," said one veteran canvasser.

One supporter mentioned it, but only when asked. "He must have been wound up on Iraq," she said. "I bet he wished he'd never got involved."

Au contraire, said the Blair camp: he was convinced it was right then, so it must be right now. And if it was right then to stand with Mr Bush, it must be right now. No rowing back.

And, went the argument, what are the alternatives to Mr Blair's policy? Not even an anti-war protestor could countenance withdrawing troops and watching Iraq plunge into civil war taking all the Middle East with it?

You have to stay put.

Similarly, what are the alternatives to Mr Blair as leader? Just Gordon Brown.

Labour will, with good reason, portray Michael Howard as a "fifth term Thatcher". But the Tories would, with good reason, label Mr Brown as the most redistributive Chancellor of all time. They'd even throw the dreaded s-word at him - socialist.

Middle England would be so frightened that it wouldn't vote Labour as it did in 1997; it wouldn't even stay at home as it did in 2001. It would turn Tory.

So Mr Blair has to stay put. "He's up for it," said one. "He's full of ideas. You wait for the manifesto."

But you don't need to be a great intellect to see it being drowned out by a four-letter word beginning in I and ending in Q.