I recently watched the Helen Mirren film, The Queen, which portrayed Tony Blair's very first days in office. Blair's Labour victory was portrayed as "new" England versus the queen's "old" England. It's strange how long ago that seems, and how much the perceptions of Blair have changed. And now, with just ten days left of his tenure, Blair faces a legacy that mars all the promise of his early years...
BBC: As Mr Blair made his final appearance before the Commons' liaison committee, he did his best to correct a whole series of negatives that have attached themselves to his reign. [..]
What he had always done - and this is what it may all boil down to in the end, he once again suggested - was what he believed was the right thing.
Particularly, he had done the right thing in four international interventions including Afghanistan and Iraq.
And there was that single word that has hung over everything Mr Blair has done or tried to do since 2003.
It was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Tory MP Edward Leigh who gave the most brutal assessment of exactly what Iraq had meant for the prime minister who, he confessed, had been "brilliant" in some areas of his leadership.
Only that one word would be written on Tony Blair's political tombstone, and the prime minister was in denial about it, he suggested.
