Raedwulf, I would say that almost everything that Blair has done or said in his political career was ego driven.

His campaigning has always been a blatant personality cult operation, and his sucking up to Bush has all the hallmarks of the school toady, issuing threats from a safe position behind the school bully.

As Bob Monkhouse once said, the public can easily spot a lack of sincerity, so if you can learn to fake that, you've got it made.

Tony fakes sincerity rather well, as has been shown by some of our best impressionists writing body language scripts to match his speeches.

This may well be why he speaks in such a jerky, uncoordinated way. He has to think about matching the gestures to the words.

Don T.