Our former Prime Minister has become Sir Tony. This has caused outrage to the Stop the War Coalition and some relatives of our Iraq war dead and wounded.

Away from that, the Blair legacy is what we see today. Our politics has become an ideological vacuum based on pragmatism, heavily dependent on soundbite imagery.

With people who are mostly out of their depth. New Labour’s Blair drew the line in the sand between conviction and career politics.

To be fair, Sir Tony was a corn fed product of that new media and internet age. His savvy populism and chiselled appearance fitted neatly into the brief.

But strangely, almost anyone would have beaten Major’s Tories to power in 1997, so perhaps the ‘Third Way’ revolution wasn’t necessary.

Those who cite the Iraq war need to be careful. Hussein was an evil dictator who murdered millions of his own people and Kurds.

He violated 17 UN ceasefire resolutions following the Gulf War of 1991 and he appeared at least aware of the 911 attacks 24 hours before they happened because he put his military on red alert.

So as for the Knighthood, it’s complicated.

Alan Bates