People really believed New Labour would rule in a different way. They wanted a change from the feebleness and sleaze of the last years of the Conservatives. And the Government's achievements have been real. The economy is healthy, the promised reform of our education system is proceeding at a cracking pace, the health service is slowly being forced to modernise, and in dozens of ways, from gun control to reform of Parliamentary hours, the country is being catapulted into the twenty-first century. But we have taken the road of expediency too often.
High office is merciless in the way it reveals character.
Slowly but relentlessly, Tony Blair's shortcomings are undermining him. The process has the tragic momentum of a Shakespeare play. One by one, the people with the strength to tell him when he is wrong are being dumped. Meanwhile, advisors who play on Tony's weaknesses grown ever more powerful. But the process is not irreversible.