But there is a difference. Blair was a seasoned politician – 14 years a member of parliament – by the time he came to power, and yet still four years younger than Obama is today.

And Blair though a decent clothes hanger like Obama, was NOT an empty suit. We heard what he was about and felt his ideas develop for the three years he led his party before the 1997 election. We KNEW what Blairism would be, and in my humble opinion, we got it.

And personally I am not complaining about it. His new Labour party is now the model for all the others. And Brown has picked up the reins where his predecessor dropped them over domestic & foreign policy.

I am sick of the constant complaints about our Helath Service. It is amazingly good and still, amazingly free. Our schools are getting better, due in part to Blair’s academies, and the country under Blair did pretty well for HIS 10 years. Co-incidental that it has fallen apart somewhat since he left.

But still we have probably, (though it pains me to say it, as he is not half the statesman or visionary leader that Blair was), the right man in charge right now with Brown.

Melanie Phillips is right in some of her criticisms, and I share many of them. There has been far too much creeping Ismalisation of our country. But even here, and perhaps too late Blair tried to turn our attention to this.

He was stopped in his tracks by the liberal intelligentsia press, civil & human righters and inner city MPs looking after their seats and afraid to be too tough with a certain element in our society.

If Obama turns out to be half the man that Blair was I might even start to notice him.

For now, I have deep concern over America’s foreign policies. Blair knew who our friends were, a fact that Phillips fails to praise, though she agrees with him on Iraq.

Littlejohn is one of the Daily Mail’s Blair haters. These Tories never quite accepted that this man wasn’t instinctively THEIRS. They, had they had any useful leader over the last 10 years, would have done exactly the same as Blair in Iraq, only possibly, sooner.

And they would have torn themselves apart over Europe, as usual.

Other issues: devolution, probably not under the Tories, guaranteeing their continuing fall in Scottish & EWelsh support; Northern Ireland peace, probably incapable of the mazing work that Blair the peace-maker did; the NHS & Education reforms, probably little different than Labour’s, except with greater privatisation.

Some of us miss Tony Blair, though I am sure as hell he doesn’t miss most of us.