During a scene of Stephen Frears’ clever film, The Queen, British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s staff is relishing the public disdain for the Royal Family’s restrained response to Princess Diana’s death because it makes Blair — who made a passionate public response — look good in comparison. Blair — played brilliantly by Michael Sheen — grows frustrated with his staff’s gloating because he knows that the same public venom that is being directed toward the Royal Family could just as easily be directed toward him.
Based on this Daily Telegraph article, Blair may be receiving precisely what he feared:

We have become like any other nation. No more can we tell ourselves that British corruption scandals are qualitatively different from those of hot countries, or that the peccadilloes that shake our polity would barely make the newspapers in Italy. In 1994, in his first major speech as Labour leader, Tony Blair promised that, under his leadership, Britain would never again be out of step with Europe. Now, in a grisly kind of way, his ambition has been fulfilled.
With so many sleaze stories in our news pages, it is easy to become confused. A prominent Labour donor has been profiting from the recommendations of his own task-force. Gordon Brown’s supporters accuse Mr Blair of seeking to drag their man into the mire with him. Meanwhile, the Government has ordered an abrupt halt to the inquiry into allegations of hidden arms commissions, just as others begin to suspect corruption.
The sheer blizzard of allegations can leave us snow-blind. Perhaps, we tell ourselves, this is what all governments do. Perhaps Labour is no different from its predecessors. After all, wasn’t John Major brought down after a series of sexual and financial scandals?
Yes, he was. But what is happening now is of a different order. The central accusation against this ministry ñ that it has sold favours, possibly even places in the legislature, to secret donors ñ is one that has not been seriously levelled at a British government since the introduction of the universal franchise. [. . .]
Tony Blair’s belief in the superiority of his motives leads him to reason that, when the New Labour project is at stake, the ends justify the means.
We saw this within weeks of his accession when he sought to explain the Ecclestone affair ñ the first of many cash-for-favours scandals ñ on the basis that he was a pretty straight kinda guy. That, essentially, remains his attitude: he regards complaints about probity as petty next to what he is doing for Britain.
A decade later, parliament is cheapened, and the police have been called into Downing Street. That, more than the transformation of his party, more than Scottish devolution, more even than Iraq, will be his legacy.