It wasn’t one mistake or one flawed policy that eroded all that initial optimism, it was New Labour’s very meaning. In fact, Blair’s support for Bush was a result of that adoration for the wealthy and powerful. Iraq wasn’t an aberration, it was a consequence of all he stood for. But Iraq is what he’ll be remembered for - forever always, no matter how much he tries to orchestrate a “legacy” around social reforms or whatever. He might as well have got Harold Shipman to say: “It’s not fair. No one remembers how I helped out Mrs Ambridge at the Post Office with her shingles. Just ‘murders murders murders’, that’s all the bastards go on about. Well, they’ll be sorry when I’ve gone.”

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