Skipper

Andrew Rawnsley's brilliant assessment of the ten Blair years makes much of the marriage analogy when considering his relationship with Brown. It strikes me that in a sense we've all experienced something similar in our personal relationship with the soon -to- be former prime minister. It began with wild euphoria; after the frostiness of Thatcher and greyness of Major, Blair became the answer we all yearned for and with his chameleon skills he encouraged and nurtured all our varied expectations. Then came the first suspicions that he might just not be telling us the truth, subsequently reinforced by leaks like that memo calling for 'eye catching initiatives'- was he just another shallow male politician, vainly obsessed with his own image?

Then, after 9-11 he began to see too much of another man and it soon became clear this was a serious relationship(sorry about this metaphor, it just snuck its way in). Then he was joining his new man in the mad adventure of Iraq and warning us about WMD which never seemed to turn up as promised. Looking back, we began to realise that so many of his stories had never quite added up. I thought he should have resigned after the evidence to Hutton made it obvious his staff had indeed 'sexed up' that awful dossier, but, as is so often the case with such men, he had no shame. Some people, aghast, swore they were gobsmacked, betrayed, totally disillusioned. They swore they would never again believe a word he said.

Me? I decided to be civilised about it. We rubbed along unhappily for several years with infuriating vestiges of my earlier admiration stubbornly refusing to go. But I knew it was over and just a matter of time so that I was rather hoping the 'coup' attempt in 2005 might hasten his departure, as it eventually did. Soon it will indeed finally be over and we'll all have to look elsewhere for someone else. I just hope we're not conned again by a public schoolboy with a fresh face and a beguiling manner, into thinking we've found true love again.