Today, Tony Blair announced that he would be resigning as Prime Minister... in a month and a bits time.

 

I guess we shouldn't be surprised that they are announcing things in advance - after all Gordon Brown famously announced that he'd be selling off a large amount of our gold reserve. I'm no economist, but even I could see that announcing that in advance would surely cause the market to fall - and it did.

 

Anyway, to return to Blairs triumphal exit. Apparently Mr Blair is supposed to have told the Cabinet that he didn't want Ministers paying tribute to him, adding "that can be left to another day." Can you feel the humility?

 

He then stood up, safely in front of a crown of specially chosen labour party members, and encouraged us all to look back at how far the country had come in 10 years, and how much better life is now then it was back then. Are we living in the same country?

 

Some figures, courtesy of todays Telegraph:

 

Average House Price: 1997=£68,525. 2007=£205,102

Cars on the road: 1997=26,974,000. 2007=33,522,106

Price per Litre of Unleaded Petrol: 1997=61.7p (of which 13.9p tax) 2007=93.6 (of which 23.2p tax)

Average household debt: 1997=£16,155. 2007=£54,318

Prison Population: 1997=61,114 (3,721 'lifers'). 2007=80,153 (8,759 'indeterminate sentences')

Average price of a pint of draught lager: 1997=£1.83. 2007=£2.60

Cost of a flight to New York: 1997=£329 (of which £24 tax). 2007=£348 (of which £208 tax)

 

Maybe I'm just an old cynic, but surely those aren't that good? Then again, it seems I'm not the only person to have been put off by what New Labour promised and has delivered...

 

Labour Party Membership: 1997=405,000. 2007=198,500

 

How about some other figures? MRSA cases per year in the NHS? Or even more damning, MRSA cases per year per pound of funding? Number of service personnel killed per year?

 

I don't have these figures, but I'd love to know them...