Still hanging on, but Blair emerges with no credit from the past 12 months
By Iain Macwhirter
IT IS difficult to recall, at the tragicomic conclusion to 2006, just how respected Tony Blair was in the early years of the Labour government. There was a time when this man really could do no wrong.
Recall how, in 1998, Blair deflected the Bernie Ecclestone affair, and the cash-for-contacts row, by saying that everyone knew he was a "pretty straight kind of a guy". If the PM had said that 10 (...)