Adam Boulton insists that he wrote this book neither to praise Tony Blair nor to dismantle him, but to bear witness to the epoch we lived through. Boulton began working as a political journalist 25 years ago, and here draws on the experience gleaned from his "front-row seat". (In 2006, Blair attended Boulton's wedding to Anji Hunter, Blair's closest friend and long-serving amanuensis, though she is largely absent from these pages.)

Foreign Secretary David Miliband today gave his strong backing to Tony Blair's candidacy to be the first permanent President of the European Union.

It is hard work defending Tony Blair and thankless. But there are some things that just have to be done.

Boris Johnson writes today that Tony Blair will not become EU president because he is too much of an Atlanticist and a defender of the Anglo-Saxon market economy. He's willing to bet any reader £5 that he's right.

Lord Saville's report into the events surrounding the Bloody Sunday shootings in Londonderry in 1972 have been delayed yet again and will not be presented to ministers until March next year.

Stephen Frears, the director, was at it again yesterday. One joke about executing Tony Blair could perhaps be brushed off as a lapse of taste, but now he has said this to Sueddeutsche Zeitung:

My previous two posts pose the question: Why is Tony Blair so hated in some quarters?

Not used to speaking in public, civil servants give themselves away as soon as they open their mouths. Sir John Chilcot, the dark-suited respectable figure selected to head Gordon Brown's inquiry into the Iraq war, was determined to talk tough when he launched his investigation this week.

This is a strong contender for this year's Worst Interview Question award, a competition that I have just instituted. Here is Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair, "in conversation with" Tony Blair last month (photo by Justin Bishop), asking about his memoirs:

I'll shut up about Tony Blair in a minute, or when the Daily Mail stops printing, er, economies with the actualité about him. But, once again, the poison machine has been denied the story it wants, namely: "Blairs victims of property crash."

The Sunday Times two weeks ago carried a sneering interview with Tony Blair by Jonathan Leake, its science and environment editor, who plainly thought the former prime minister's claim that "the answer to climate change is the development of science and technology" was beneath his superior station

Sillier than it seemed at the time, and much less sinister. It turns out that Tony Blair really did have a Roman Catholic priest hopping in to 10 Downing Street through a back window.