To judge from the liberal reaction to last week’s British general election, the biggest loser must have been Tony Blair. In reality, he won handsomely, with a parliamentary majority of 66 seats over all other parties. In historical perspective, Mr. Blair’s majority, though cut by 94 compared to 2001, is still larger than Margaret Thatcher’s when she won power in 1979 or than any previous Labor prime minister since 1966. Mr. Blair’s margin of victory was comparable to that of President Bush last year – only this was his third triumph, a record matched, in modern times, only by Lady Thatcher.

It can be only a source of satisfaction to the White House that Britain has bucked the European trend by re-electing a prime minister who put his job on the line for the Iraq war. Whether Mr. Blair will still be strong enough to continue his support for the Bush doctrine of promoting democracy-by-regime-change remains to be seen. He signaled last year that he will not fight another election, and there is now pressure on him to stand down soon in favor of his likely successor, Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer. America’s interest is for Mr. Blair to stay the course: He is one of the few leaders in the West prepared to stand up and be counted when the survival of our civilization is at stake.

The big losers last week were the Conservatives, whose vote has scarcely risen since they lost power in 1997. For three elections in a row, their strength in Parliament has been lower than at any time since the 1850s. The only reason they regained about three dozen seats this time was that the Liberal Democrats took many anti-war votes from Mr. Blair. The Tories fought a cowardly, mean-spirited campaign focused on whether Mr. Blair lied about Saddam’s weapons. This line backfired against a Tory leader, Michael Howard, whose opportunism on Iraq and on terrorism has been obvious.

Voters were not impressed by the party of Churchill and Thatcher sneering at Mr. Blair for being a close ally of the Bush White House. The only Tory policy to make much impact – tougher immigration controls – had little appeal to the middle-class Britons who employ cheap migrant labor from Eastern Europe and elsewhere. But the more fundamental reason for the Tory debacle was their inability to offer a real alternative. By promising to match Labor’s programs on health and education, to outspend Labor on police and prisons, to pay bigger state pensions and abolish tuition fees for state universities, the Tories positioned themselves as just another advocate of big government. The tax cuts they promised were too small to excite voters’ self-interest, and there was little attempt to appeal to altruism – for instance, by lifting workers at or near the minimum wage out of income tax altogether. The Tories have taken a long time to respond to Mr. Blair’s “New Labor” pitch.

Next time around, Mr. Blair won’t be there. The next Tory leader ought to be a match for Gordon Brown, his less voter-friendly rival and successor, just as Mr. Bush was able to defeat Vice President Gore. Mr. Howard has already announced that he will step aside as soon as the party can unite behind a successor, but he wants Tory members of Parliament, not party caucuses as at present, to choose the new leader.

So the Conservative party is about to return to the system that allowed Mrs. Thatcher to be ousted before the end of her third term – an act of matricide from which the party has never completely recovered. Two years ago, they deposed their last leader, Iain Duncan Smith, before he could fight the election on a Thatcherite, Atlanticist ticket. In 13 years, the Tories have had four leaders and three defeats. They should never have lost against a wounded, battle-weary Tony Blair. Unless the Tories can return to the path of supply-side, tax-cutting yet compassionate conservatism that they abandoned under Mr. Howard, they will go on losing.

Yesterday’s anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe is a reminder of how recent and precarious democracy is in some of the nations that now lecture America on the subject. After enduring Siberian temperatures at last night’s meeting with Vladimir Putin, Mr. Bush will be relieved that, whoever may occupy the Kremlin, the Elysee Palace, or the Berlin Chancellery, America still has a reliable ally in Downing Street.