The Prime Minister's statemanship is undeniable, but Chris Lloyd assesses the benefits to Britain of Tony Blair's foreign policy

TONY BLAIR must be a chameleon. He quickly became Bill Clinton's best friend, rushing to the president's side when he was caught with his trousers down.

Then came George W Bush and, for a moment, Mr Blair was ill at ease as Mr Bush tore up environmental treaty after missile treaty.

September 11 changed everything. Mr Blair rushed to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with his new best friend and now the two are as close as old buddies at a hog roast.

There are very few votes to be won from foreign affairs.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, Mr Blair was flying the world sounding out opinions, building alliances.

But all he got at home was flak for deserting his post at a time when the railways were in crisis and trolleys were stacking up in hospital corridors.

And so the achievements and failures in foreign fields during Labour's first five years are almost meaningless.

The well-intentioned but rather ludicrous "ethical foreign policy" of Robin Cook's tenure at the Foreign Office is all but forgotten; Robert Mugabe, in Zimbabwe, is yesterday's embarrassing dictator; the war in the Balkans has been consigned to history.

Even September 11 and the war against al-Qaida has retreated into the past because world leaders, Mr Blair includ-ed, successfully negotiated their way around a frighteningly inflammable situation.

But now even more pressing problems present themselves. The US still appears to have no coherent policy towards the Middle East, but unless Israel and Palestine can be brought together, there is little hope of the war against terrorism moving into its next stage.

Under President Clinton, Britain - which still has the backdoor of the White House permanently open to it - had to work with an America that wanted to engage with the rest of the world. President Bush's natural instinct, though, was to retreat to within America's own borders.

September 11 blasted him into a rethink, but it didn't cause him to review his attitude to international affairs.

And so the Middle East spiralled downwards into its current bloody impasse, while Mr Bush considered where the war against terrorism would strike next.

By all accounts, his next target is Iraq, even though the mopping up of al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden will take months, if not years.

Other than creating another wave of immigrants to clog up Dover, it remains far from clear what military action against Saddam Hussein would achieve. There is no Northern Alliance waiting in the wings to succeed him; there is no international consensus out to get him - certainly not among Arab states, while the Middle East remains a bloody mess.

And there are no signs that the British public, while accepting that Saddam is a thoroughly evil tyrant, is itching for another war, especially not while 1,700 of their troops are committed in combat in Afghanistan.

As important - and unpopular within the Labour Party - as Britain standing "shoulder to shoulder" with Mr Bush is, it is Britain's relationship with Europe that matters more in the future.

The five years of Labour government have been characterised by a gradual warming towards membership of the euro, the single currency. Mr Blair is known to be an enthusiast; Chancellor Gordon Brown is said to be more sceptical - although he still ensured that his tax-raising Budget did not reduce Britain's chances of entry.

There are signs that a referendum will be held as early as next spring - although, if the value of the pound remains so high, it will have a question about the theory of joining rather than the practice.

As North-East manufacturing has been saying for years, the pound is too strong for Britain to do business.

A spring referendum would be Mr Blair's biggest gamble - bigger even than a tax-raising Budget. There would be a vociferous campaign against joining, and Mr Blair would have to shout loudest for a "yes" vote.

Polls suggest the public is still against joining - by 45 per cent to 31 per cent - but it, too, is gradually warming to the idea. If there were a referendum in a couple of years' time, polls say 41 per cent would vote "no" and 37 per cent "yes".

The biggest test of Mr Blair's premiership will not be his statesmanlike reaction to September 11, but whether he dares to try to take Britain into the euro.