In Tony Blair they thought they did have someone they could trust, who told it like it was. They could trust him to improve run-down schools (“education, education, education”), to tackle crime (“tough on the causes . . .”) and other public services. They thought they could trust him, unlike his Labour predecessors, not to mess up the economy. In any case he looked like a pretty straight kind of guy. But most of all they had had enough of the Tories.

It has taken a while, but that whole issue of trust has arisen again, and this time it centres more on Mr Blair himself than his party. The electorate has fallen out of love with the prime minister, and as in all passionate relationships the reaction has been disproportionate. For many voters smiling, fresh-faced Blair Mark I has been replaced by a soapy-looking, swivel-eyed purveyor of untruths.

Much of this has been caused by years of relentless spin and half truths churned out by this government, but the turning point has been the war in Iraq. It is sad that one of Mr Blair’s braver acts has so rebounded. He was right, in the opinion of The Sunday Times, to side with the United States because it was in the long-term interests of Britain to remain a close ally of America, and it was right to overthrow the murderous tyrant Saddam Hussein and to bring democracy to the Middle East.

But Mr Blair’s handling of the crisis has seemed so dishonest that he has resembled a shady character flogging watches dangling from the lining of a worn overcoat. That in turn has meant people no longer trust the prime minister on other issues; the man who made new Labour electable has himself become a liability.

Mr Blair and his government do have solid achievements to their name — an independent Bank of England, adequate handling of the economy, better funding of the health service (with mixed results), devolution, important steps in the Irish peace process, staying out of the euro and promising a referendum on the European constitution. Some of these, of course, have been achieved either by Gordon Brown, the chancellor, or against Mr Blair’s better instincts.

Against this can be set the politicisation of the civil service, continuing waste of public money, including the creation of hundreds of thousands of often useless jobs, a loss of control of immigration, and squeezing the middle class through taxation.

A culture has emerged under Labour of the ends justifying the means. The failure to act over the scandal of fraud and postal voting is just one example. That in turn has fuelled public cynicism. We will have to see whether this is enough to overturn Labour’s vast majority or whether there is enough life in the newly twitching Conservative corpse to muscle Labour aside. But by proving that he is not a straight kind of guy, Mr Blair has damaged his government and opened the real possibility of being replaced soon by Mr Brown, or — who knows — even sooner by Michael Howard.

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