Nick Robinson : Blair - he'll be missed

It is now a staggering 952 days since a weakened Tony Blair first declared that he would not seek to go "on and on and on" and promised he'd leave office before fighting a fourth election. You may, by now, be thoroughly sick of the wait. However, I have no doubt that he'll be missed. I mean that not as praise, but simply as a prediction. For a decade he's been more than just another politician. In an era obsessed with celebrity he's been near the top of the "A list". He has been one of the few enduring characters in our national soap opera. When he led the tributes to Princess Diana, millions mourned with him.

There have been 11 Prime Ministers during my lifetime and I can say with absolute certainty that not a single one (not even old Winnie) was missed when she/he finally went. The Diana reference is particularly telling. A year after her death there were virtually no signs of the mourners who had sobbed through her funeral.

Blair is a lightweight who arrived just in time for the superficial, sound-bite, gesture-ridden world of the nineties. If Robinson thinks Blair will be missed he should get out a bit more. I think he means HE and his media mates will miss Tone. For the rest of us it has come 951 days too late.