So our illustrious leader, Tony Blair, has 6 days left as Prime Minister.

He leaves under the cloud he deserves, viewed by the British public as an arrogant, manipulative liar.

He is a man who hasn't even got the decency to visit hospitalised soldiers wounded as a result of the war he took them into, a man who takes very great care to avoid any contact with wounded soldiers, dead soldiers or bereaved relatives. He took his country into a bloody war on the basis of lies and dubious-intelligence (intelligence that MI6 flagged up as being very questionable).

No British Prime Minister since Anthony Eden has ever made such a humiliating error.

Blair was so narcissistically concerned about his legacy, well now he certainly has the legacy he so rightly deserves.

If any of you Americans want him for lecture tours and the like you can have him, because nobody on this side of the pond wants him.

His replacement won't be any better. Too bad you can't get Tony Benn.

That may well prove to be true, but there is less of a stench of hypocrisy and narcissism around Gordon Brown.

Oh times change, so something like that will never be likely.

However, Tony Benn's son, Hilary, is in the running for Deputy Prime Minister, and although, unlike his father, Hilary is very much a 'New Labour' man, if he is anything at all like his father he will be a man of honesty, decency and integrity. From all appearances so far, his personality, manners, humility, and approach to people, are rather similar to his father's (although his politics is not).

Having met Tony Benn, I would put faith in any of his offspring if they had any amount of their father's traits.

This seems like a really bad idea.

Strangely enough the one good thing that Blair did do during his time serving as UK Prime Minister was to finally bring about peace in Northern Ireland, so he certainly has got the diplomatic skills and patience for such jobs. However as a man viewed as being jointly responsible for (or at least as the trusty side-kick of the man responsible for) starting the Iraq war, his crediblity as a fair-minded, impartial peace-maker in the Middle-east is pretty questionable to say the least.

From the Palestinians point of view it would like having the closest ally of the closest ally of your bitterest enemy acting as a peace-maker between you and your bitterest enemy.