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He swept to power on the promise that his government would be “purer than pure.” Blair-mania was a handmaiden of Cool Britannia, a cultural renaissance most memorably symbolized by the new prime minister inviting members of Oasis and Blur round for drinks at 10 Downing Street.

Blair was elected on a wide-ranging platform that had three broad policy goals: to bolster public services; to improve the lot for those at the bottom; and, to secure the economy. On the first two measures, he was successful: health-care spending was ratched up more than 6% a year and the poorest 10% saw their incomes rise. For much of his time in office, Blair presided over a new golden age of prosperity, thanks to cheap borrowing and soaring property values.

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But Blair had raised the bar too high with his promise that politics would be done differently. The laws of economics are immutable. Higher taxes, massive public spending and haphazard regulation meant that businesses, households, banks and government were all carrying too much debt when the financial crisis hit.

Long before that, the bloom had come off Blair’s rose. Rural voters felt their interests were being ignored, in favour of people who lived in the big cities and voted Labour. Britons everywhere felt the government was inserting itself in too many aspects of their lives — 3000 new criminal offences were introduced, including owning a horse without a passport picture of the animal, playing the piano in a pub without an entertainment licence and owning a pistol of any type, even for target practice. When I visited to cover the 2010 election, an 87-year-old man had just been served with an anti-social behaviour order for making a sarcastic comment to his neighbour.