BLAIR BEHIND THE SCENES

By ELIZABETH GLEICK

Prince and Prime Minister: in this confusing and defining moment, the British are looking to both their future King and the current head of government to draw the country into the modern era while finding a way to keep the kingdom united. In fact, this was a process that began well before the princess's death. Tony Blair campaigned as "new" Labour, and as a Minister puts it, "Modernize is one of Tony's favorite words." Having transformed the old-line left into a party of personal responsibility and community spirit, speaking the language of healing, empowerment and openness, he was ready to apply the same process to the monarchy.

During the preparations for Diana's funeral, when the nation demanded strong direction, the mediagenic Blair stepped in. His public footing was sure, indelibly linking the citizenry with the royals in the phrase people's princess. In the days before the funeral, he spoke out in defense of the royal family, calling criticism of it "unfair." He also worked unobtrusively inside the palace to bolster Charles, consulting several times with him to help devise a more populist event. The Blair forces suggested and implemented the loudspeaker system that allowed people on London's streets to hear the service inside Westminster Abbey. Then, the day after the funeral, the Blairs had lunch with the Queen at Balmoral, and the Prime Minister firmly pronounced that he thought Charles would make a good King. Perhaps most important of all, he never bragged about his work behind the scenes.

From the day he was elected last May, Blair signaled his desire to focus his modernizing campaign on the Prince of Wales, whom he had first met in the late 1980s. The Prime Minister regarded the Prince as a renovation, not demolition, project. "There were serious contacts between the new government and [Charles] to rehabilitate him," says a government official. The rehab campaign even extended as far as working to gain popular support for the Prince's relationship with Camilla Parker Bowles, who reportedly met several times with minister without portfolio Peter Mandelson, one of Blair's chief spin doctors.

The two men, who spoke frequently, are also linked by similar attitudes and ambitions. They share a firm sense of duty. Both, according to someone who knows them, share "the same sort of fundamentalist strain." They are deeply religious without necessarily being orthodox. And they have children of a similar age--though the state-educated Blair boys, Euan and Nicholas, thrashed William and Harry at soccer this summer.

Blair and the Prince had apparently entered a "partnership pact" on a subject both care about: the underprivileged. Charles "didn't always have a government that shared his views or was prepared to act in cooperation with him," Mandelson noted last month, but "he rolled up his sleeves, he got cracking, and now he has a government prepared to work with him." Charles and Blair have even been criticized by the press for being too "cozy."

Part of the reform is the creation of a less regal monarchy. As a Labour insider puts it, "The royals have to look like they are involved in the life of the society. You have to speak like you come from the same planet." It would have been easier with Diana. Senior officials say Blair regarded the princess as a primary part of the rehabilitative process, especially as Charles and Diana's relationship grew easier. She was to use her celebrity to enhance the very institution that had given her the boot. Says a senior Labourite: "She was their salvation. But now she is dead, and they will have to do it totally without her."

--By Elizabeth Gleick. Reported by Barry Hillenbrand/London

With reporting by Barry Hillenbrand/London