@Robert Barry: That's funny, we think Bush is 'something of a mistake that you have been unable to avoid'.

Mr Brittain, Derbyshire, UK

Excellent article and good points made about emotional intelligence.

Blair had tremendous charisma in his personality and his sense of humour and actions alluded to greater emotional intelligence.

Brown in turn seems to lack both.

Is it that humans prefer being led by charismatic leaders and even accept them at times with their faults in contrast to brooding, flairless taskmasters?

Chaitanya Bal, London,

I must confess i agree with you intoto. Time will be a better judge of Blair and i dare say in a very positive light.

Blair would have done better in his later years in power after the teething problems he had at the start of his premiership. But the electorate chose to concentrate on the mistakes,and prominent amongst them was Iraq.

Brown to me was part of the team that made the economy what it was yesterday as recession creeps in. Without trying to be the devils advocate,Brown and labour are in for a rough ride. The economy which used to be their strong points will be Browns legacy of economic recession and unemployment. Brown has simply run out of ideas and is not an all round politician. To me he is simply not change but status quo ...

Ade Nsoh, Birmingham, West Midlands

Blair was never liked by the majority who could see through him and New Labour. If only we could airbrush the lot of them and the last ten years out i'd be a happy little bunny. They have destroyed a once wonderful country, i know i will never forgive them and if the Tories pulled us out of the EU once and for all...they'd romp home.

What are you waiting for Dave?

Samantha Jones, Bucks, England

Mr. Brown is a one-trick pony. Well, two tricks, if you count the old prostitution charge. He has already rendered himself ineffective. In the U.S. he is perceived as something of a mistake that England seems to have been unable to avoid.

Robert Barry, Hamden, Ct

... and, to put what seems to be the minority view on this post ....

Blair was disliked intensely because he achieved little in terms of improving public services and - in common with many of his colleagues - found too much enjoyment in the trappings of power.

Incidentally, far from having a superlative command of English as suggested by one post, Blair will be forever remembered for his incessant and incorrect (is there ever a correct use) of that awful word 'got'.

Sadly we seem to be visited by the politicians that we deserve.

Stephen Reeve

Stephen Reeve, Southend, UK

Point of order.We already have devolution,independence is a different issue.
And no thanks,you keep him!

Disgusted Dorothy, Glasgow, Scotland

Tony Who?

Mark Lyndon, London, UK

A very good article indeed, points well put. I never voted for Blair either but being a Tory or not, the first time I watched over the internet a live press conference from his constituency, I had to acknowledge that he was good, damn good. What "did" for Blair as indeed Bush, was the lack of WMDs in Iraq but for that, I wonder when we would have got rid of the bugger !

In a sense, it is better that we now have Brown who in comparison is a little man with a meaner and more introverted character, he is more fitting as we approach the no doubt temporary demise of Labour for about a decade following the 2010 General Election - which will be held at the very last moment. It struck me the other day watching Brown just how differently Blair would have handled it: "Well of course I am a politician and of course I looked at doing it, it's what we do chaps." We would all have laughed and the Teflon Kid would have done it again, Brown is a poor substitute.

John Haynes, Burnham on Sea, Somerset, UK

Blair did not get my vote, maybe out of loyalty to a conservative party that lost its way, but Brown will not get my vote for a whole host of reasons:
By stealth he is reversing years of this country to the seventies and early eighties where union oligarchs are tightening their control over the country and the country is powerless to stop them. The punishing taxes on the middle classes which drive out entrepreneurship and enterprise. The ever encroaching state that is apparently there to serve the country only reduces civil liberty, attacks those it is to serve and only serves to line its own pockets. Finally the fact that he is Scottish, and the Scots want devolution, means that effectively we will have a foreigner with no mandate to be in an English parliament making laws that are crippling England.

Blair was not much better, but perversely had a degree of honesty which I cannot see in Brown.

Daniel Fielding, Egham, England

Daniel, what you don't mention is that all of Blair's supporters nowadays are Americans and Tories who would have no intention of voting for him if he'd remained PM. He'd alienated many many people. He may well have been right but if people won't listen to you you can't convince them. Ask IDS or William Hague! (The jury is still out on Cameron).

Ned, London,

I have a vision for the future too and, for the sake of England and the traditional virtues of Englishness, I pray it may be realised in my lifetime. It is a vision that haunts my fondest dreams and although at the moment it is nebulous and fanciful it seems there is a possibility of it becoming more concrete.
It is the sight of Brown's fat Scots arse disappearing rapidly across the border into the fastnesses of Fife, never, ever, to reappear south of Hadrian's Wall. If he were closely followed north by all of his New Labour countrymen and catamites, the vision would indeed be beatific.

Roland Scott-Jackson, Verteillac, France

The Clinton analogy is a sound one. Seen as a liability at the time, he now seems to be the Democrats greatest asset in the forthcoming Presidential election.

I predict within two years Gordon Brown will be mainly remembered as the Spinmeister-General who massacred small business and steered our economy down the toilet.

Tony Blair, in contrast, will be viewed to be the real conviction politician of our times, who went so far as to enact policies that made him incredibly unpopular, such were the strengths of his beliefs.

Jon Miller, London,

Blair spent oppostion and the first term of his government bleating and spinning about how wicked the tories were. But then realised that tory ideas were realistic and correct.

james c, london,

Daniel, great minds think alike ! I was, sort of, thinking the same today ....

I never voted for Blair and could not abide his style of leadership but something crossed my mind. Indeed Brown ditched the Blair 'legacy' and dumped Blair along with it. Blair's last election win was credited to Brown. Bizarrely there will be no Blair to help Brown at the next election. Argueably the nearest thing to Blair at the next election is .. alright, lets admit it ..... Cameron !! And he's on the other side !

Today we didn't see a glimpse of the Brown vision - we saw the whole lot - and it was small and pathetic. No great master plan . Yes, we saw ambition. But not ambition for our country. Brown is detail , Blair is big picture, big vision.

Brown without Blair is like Little without Large or pizza without topping. He's grey, two dimensional and devastatingly smug.

Blair and Campbell must be laughing all the way to their publishers.

DaveL, Swindon, Wiltshire

Excellent! I agree with you 100%.

Fernandez, San Francisco,

Blair was far and away the best PM since Churchill, better than the rest put together.
His command of the English language was always superlative, without ever being pompous or pedantic.
Best of all, he took Britain into the 21st century.

Dave, Southampton, UK

Tony Blair did not become exasperated with Middle England late in his reign, he despised Middle England all along. It was lucky for him (and unlucky for the country) that the liberal metropolitan media was itself too detached from Middle England itself to notice.

Oliver Chettle, Bedford,

well said ..and congradulations on seeing and conveying the truth of the "Brown project " ...He's been a loser since he entered politics and will for sure end up as one ..Blair with hindsight and a few more months will be greatly missed

mahendra patel, leicester, leicestershire