Bagehot: Last call

摘要

Next week, after a stint of over five years, this Bagehot will hand over to a fresh new one a month before the arrival on the scene of a fresh (well, sort of) new prime minister. This will therefore be a shamelessly valedictory last column. Although Tony Blair has been the dominant figure on this page during those five years, his power has waned progressively. As this Bagehot took up his pen, Mr Blair was about to make the decision from which his premiership never recovered. Whether or not the "Crawford deal" with George Bush in April 2002 was the explicit commitment by the British prime minister to regime change in Iraq that some believe, it was the moment when Mr Blair made up his own mind on the matter. Meeting him on a terrace overlooking the garden at 10 Downing Street a few months later, there was little room for doubt about which path he had resolved to take.