So, Tony has gone, and now Gordon is with us. How will things change? We don’t know, of course; but we can hope.

And it’s only fair to pay tribute to Blair’s accomplishments; for they are many, and many of them are good. Unfortunately, there are many that are not.

Hmmm, have I said all this before? Yeah, well I guess I have.

Curiously (as you may think), it’s never been Iraq that really got to me. Iraq was a mistake: a big, very stupid one; but perhaps a genuine one. By which I mean that even Blair (as well as Parliament) may have been misled by the dodgy dossier; and certainly by the curious mystique or glamour that he seems to see around Bush.

But of course, it’s the assaults on civil liberties at home, and the support for the US’s torture regime, that really blew it for me.

Oh well, Northern Ireland turned out well, there’s still the Human Rights Act, the age of consent was equalised for gays (and Section 28 repealed), and so on.

Things got better; and worse as well. What’s next depends on the Son of a Preacher Man.