Looking increasingly vacant in that ravaged, glassy-eyed way, the widow’s peak stretching the hair-thickening sprays more by the day, his recent statements of intent - sorting out the Middle East, revolutionising university funding, saving the planet from climate change while continuing to star in Carry On Turning Left At The Stewardess - have been so barmily self-contradictory or plain delusional as to suggest the sort of character for whom the first question, on being hurriedly admitted to a clinic, is “Now then, dear, do you know who the Prime Minister is?”

In a vaguely sane political system, with a vaguely coherent written constitution and a vaguely effective legislature, the answer “Tony Blair” would trigger the appearance of a syringe and the whispered request “Straitjacket, sister, quick as you can”. But thanks to this weird, unsettling stasis gripping Westminster, it still qualifies as that rarest of commodities to emit from Mr Blair’s mouth, the literal truth.

read the rest