You may not have come across the name Tony Woodley yet, unless you have a peculiar interest in the internal politics of the trades union movement; the man is Deputy General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers? Union. That will soon change. Mr Woodley has just been elected its leader ? elected on a platform amounting to outright opposition to the government.

If Mr Woodley's election was the only black spot on an otherwise rosy horizon, it would be little more than irritating. It is, however, far from that. It is par for the course in a second term which appears to be unravelling before our eyes. One day the Prime Minister is attacked over Europe, the next over Iraq; one day over the economy, the next over crime; one day over transport, the next over the NHS; one day over education, the next over his very trustworthiness. And what makes these attacks so potentially catastrophic is that they come not from the Conservatives, or from the media, but from his own Labour MPs.

Tony Woodley is merely the latest in a succession of recently elected leaders who are, at best, Old Labour, and at worst far more dangerous still. Mr Woodley joins Kevin Curran, who six weeks ago was elected boss of the GMB union and who, within hours of his victory, called for ?a return to the closed shop? and attacked the Prime Minister's ?privileged life?.

Along with Derek Simpson of Amicus, Bob Crow of RMT, Mick Rix of Aslef, Andy Gilchrist of the FBU, Mark Serwotka PCS and Dave Prentis of Unison, they are now part of a broad range of union leaders who deliberately position themselves as opponents of Tony Blair. Tony Woodley believes that Mr Blair has ?hijacked? the Labour Party. As he put it after his election: ?The awkward squad (the label he himself has chosen) are a reminder of what Labour should be doing?This is a government which?is still wedded to the rich and powerful.?

To that end, the new TGWU leader has called a summit of anti-Blair union leaders to ?put Labour back into the party?. But it is not just hard-left union leaders who are challenging Tony Blair. The most powerful challenges are from his fellow Labour MPs. In the immediate aftermath of victory in Iraq, there were some in the Prime Minister's circle who thought that a by-product of vanquishing Saddam was that he had also vanquished his Old Labour, anti-war opponents. As we are now seeing, that was never remotely true. Indeed, far from lying low, Labour MPs who opposed the war are now making hay, coming forward with accusations which would have been inconceivable a matter of weeks ago. Robin Cook talks of a ?monumental blunder?, Clare Short of Mr Blair's ?deceit?.

The change in atmosphere is clear. When Mr Cook resigned, he made a measured, calm statement; when Ms Short launched her vicious, personal attack on the Prime Minister in her resignation statement, she was met with open hostility from most of her fellow Labour MPs. Yet a matter of days later, their far stronger attacks have been left to hang in the air with the implicit support of their colleagues, as few MPs not on the ministerial payroll have come forward to defend Mr Blair. The demand for an inquiry into the run-up to the war is, from these sources, barely disguised code for the accusation that Mr Blair lied. When even your own party thinks that you are a liar, you know you are in trouble.

Yet for all the mess the Prime Minister is now in, he knows in his own mind that he did the right thing. What still knaws away at him, however, is what he sees as his greatest failure. From day one of the first term, Mr Blair's obsession was winning a referendum on the euro, which would be held about now. He knows that the overwhelming hostility of the public has made that an impossibility, but he also knows that, as Peter Mandelson put it a fortnight ago, he has been ?outmanoeuvred? by Gordon Brown.

Indeed, when one looks for the most significant opposition to Mr Blair's chances of ending his second term with a lasting legacy, it is his Downing Street neighbour who leaps out. He has spent years courting the unions, repeatedly stressing his traditional Labour background and his core belief in redistribution.

One insider told me yesterday that the Chancellor ?hasn?t been so happy in ages. Sarah is pregnant, and Tony's stuffed. It couldn?t really be much better for him?. The Prime Minister's flagship Foundation Hospitals policy, which was intended as the boldest of all the bold new developments, has been neutered by the Chancellor's intervention. Mr Brown forced Mr Blair to fight a bruising internal war to get his university fees policy through ? and it has yet to face the anger of backbench Labour MPs, let alone many parents. And as every day brings a further deterioration in the Prime Minister's trust ratings, and ever louder whispers against him by Labour MPs, so Gordon Brown licks his lips in anticipation. The Chancellor said no more than the bare minimum required of him during the war, and the more Mr Blair is damaged in the aftermath, the more Mr Brown is strengthened.

Tony Woodley's election is, on its own, hardly the most worrisome problem faced by Tony Blair. But it is symptomatic of wider troubles, in which the Prime Minister seems to be assailed in every direction he turns. The whole, as they say, is greater than the sum of the parts, and it is far from impossible that they mark the beginning of the end for Tony Blair.
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