What is really going on in politics? Get our daily email briefing straight to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

Today is my last column.

When I started, I promised to tell it like it is and pull no punches. Even when people threw verbal eggs when I did speak my mind.

I was attacked in 2013 for raising my Yorkie mate’s view that, after being on the throne for over 60 years, the Queen should be allowed to retire and hand over to Prince Charles.

Since then the Queen has started to scale back her commitments and hand more duties to her son.

In 2014 I incurred the wrath of the Board of Deputies of British Jews when I wrote in this column that the Israeli Government’s two-week shelling of Gaza, killing 1,000 people including 165 children, was a war crime .

The Board publicly wrote to the Lords Chief Whip asking me to be dealt with. I don’t recall them condemning the Israeli actions.

In 2016, after the publication of the Chilcot Report into our Labour Government’s role in the Iraq war, I wrote that I’d come to agree with former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that, as the prime aim was regime change, the war was illegal .

I used the article as a platform to publicly apologise for my role in that decision to go to war and how I had to live with the guilt.

Alastair Campbell didn’t like it.

But the mistake of over-relying on intelligence evidence could even turn out to be true about Russia’s alleged involvement with the Salisbury attacks.

I hope this column has made you think, made you smile and occasionally made you angry.

I’ll miss our Sundays together. But I am honoured and privileged that I got to spend 274 of them with you.