The greatest nation on earth..

I'm sure like many thousands of people, I watched Blair's valedictory speech today as closely as possible, noting every overly-dramatic pause and Clinton-esque thumb-in-fist air prodding. It was a well choreographed event: he ended with the words 'good luck' - someone had a banner with those words written on it etc. It was mildly revolting to see the firmly converted clapping like seals in a zoo before he came on. Like many, I believe that Blair's legacy would have been on the whole a strong one, had it not been for the disastrous intervention in Iraq. But then again, had he not made the decision he did (to believe the lies about WMD), how could the British government have avoided damaging the relationship with the US? In part, people are angry about the stated reasons for deposing Saddam, not for the actual intervention itself. It mixes itself up with the smarmy-charmy charisma of Blair himself as a reflection of the politician who never fails to spin.

Most distasteful of all was his attempt at an emotional climax, with the appeal to Britain being the 'greatest nation on earth.' It sounded strangely anachronistic, and sat awkwardly with the earlier parts of his speech which gave the background to the modernisation of the Labour Party and the UK in the mid-1990s. Can anyone seriously claim that their country is the greatest nation on earth today? Being 'the greatest' sounds so modernist, a bit like a Le Corbusier house, 'labour-saving appliances' or the 'motor-car'. Certainly, when he said it, it did not have the ultimate crowd-pleasing effect his speech writer must have been straining for.

A new regime of British politics looks set to open up in a few weeks, when a man thoroughly bereft of charm, but with perhaps more principle and political conviction, takes the mantle. Those May days of 1997 seem a long time ago.