A call from a journalist three thousand miles away asked me to sum up the end of the Blair era. He told me he was thinking of saying "Economy OK, a pity about Iraq".

I suggested he thought again about the first part of that testimonial. We have lived through 10 years of good growth, low inflation, low interest rates, rising house prices and cheap Indian and Chinese goods in all the main world economies.

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As?? a result of the Blair/Brown interventions the Uk now has higher inflation than our major competitors, has lost one million manufacturing jobs, still has 5.3 million people of working age without a job on benefit, and has higher interest rates on average than the USA, Japan and Euroland.

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Blair/Brown inherited a strong economy and have only gradually damaged it by higher taxes and unproductive public spending (ID cards/Dome/NHS IT/etc). They inherited a great pension system which they helped wreck with their pensions stealth tax and regulatory system. They argued themselves to a standstill over education and health reform, first destroying the Conservative changes in favour of more choice, and then at the end Blair tried to restore some of those ideas against the wishes of most in his party.

I think Labour will?? miss Tony ??Blair. Whilst he has disappointed many by his war and his failure to deliver proper public service reform at home, he is a much better public performer than Gordon ??Brown and has been able to fool some of the people some of the time that did not traditionally vote Labour. Three election victories in a row are in part down to him – not to Gordon. Gordon Brown’s electoral tests begin on May 3rd, when judging by the polls he will take Labour to new lows.