Washington ? Tony Charles Lynton Blair’s decision not to seek a fourth-term as British prime minister is bad news indeed for 61 million Britons and 298 million Americans. And it is a major blow to the great Atlantic alliance so carefully constructed by another British prime minister and stalwart friend of America, Winston Churchill.

An artful dodger in the minefields of British politics, Blair won elections by landslides in 1997 and 2001, and again by a substantial majority in May 2005. With his Labor Party holding a huge majority in Parliament, he would seemingly be a shoo-in for a fourth-term in residence at 10 Downing Street, but he recently told his nation he will not stand for re-election as leader of his party.

His replacement is a dour Scotsman named Gordon Brown, current chancellor of the exchequer. Brown, 54, is everything Blair is not. Blair is moderate on the environment; a firm believer in well-regulated free enterprise; skeptical of the sluggish, entrenched socialist economies of France and Germany; astute enough to know that British prosperity depends on being competitive in an unforgiving global marketplace.

Brown is an idealist, who fancies himself an intellectual, but really is little more than a well-educated ideologue. He has an unshakeable belief that governments were conceived to shape citizens and society according to basic Labor Party doctrine – by incentives if possible, by an iron hand if necessary.

Like most of the dyed-in-the-wool leftists who constitute Labor’s controlling echelons, Brown vehemently disagrees with Blair’s pro-American stance and his commitment of more than token British forces in Iraq. It’s debatable as to whether Brown would toss aside Blair’s military commitments to President Bush, but it a near-certainty that he will not make any fresh commitments himself.

And Brown would be far less likely than Blair to support the United States on key votes in the United Nations affecting the war on terrorism.

Brown apparently believes an environmental Armageddon is nigh, and the budget he unveiled as chancellor of the exchequer earlier this month contains large tax increases to set things right. His new budget calls for levies of up to $366 a year on low-mileage vehicles like SUVs, minivans and full-size sedans.

There’s every reason to believe Brown would be a willing tool of Big Labor in Britain – pushing generous wage increases for public workers that would further diminish his nation’s ability to compete with growing economies like India and China.

Labor’s Clement Atlee pursued a similar course after he toppled Churchill in 1945. Although Great Britain was still fighting Japan in the Far East, war-weary British voters preferred Atlee’s promises of guaranteed social security, jobs and health care to Churchill’s offer of “staying the course.”

But the world in 1945 was not comparable to the world of 2006. Hitler was dead and his Nazis were vanquished. The Empire of the Rising Sun was a fading glimmer on the horizon of history.

Today, Britain and the United States are fighting a stealth and fanatical enemy that may soon have the ability to send a few individuals with backpacks into midtown Manhattan and turn New York City into a Nagasaki. With Brown eventually taking over from Blair – the most rock-ribbed and resolute Briton since Margaret Thatcher – American’s struggle against the forces of darkness will become chillingly lonelier.