Photo of Blair ‘the Showman’ courtesy of Google Images
As Mr Blair admitted that he had not always lived up to the public's high expectations when he entered Downing Street a decade ago, the "New Labour, New Britain" logo - the defining symbol of his leadership - was removed from the party's website and replaced with plain "Labour" and the red rose symbol.
The move emphasised the determination of senior Labour figures to regain hundreds of thousands of traditional supporters who have come to associate New Labour with a betrayal of the party's values. Mr Blair launched the name at his first conference as leader in 1994 at the start of a relentless programme of modernisation. The end of New Labour (more) By George Jones and Toby Helm
Telegraph Leader: Tony Blair's exit was gracefully done, though the seven-week farewell tour that is to follow will surely test everyone's patience.Mark Alexander
This peerless political showman delivered a speech that was perfectly pitched and refreshingly free of maudlin sentiment.
Yet what was most striking about the swansong was its defensiveness, underscored by his rather plaintive assertion that "hand on heart, I did what I thought was right" as he apologised for the times when he had "fallen short". It struck an elegiac note in counterpoint to his predictable roll-call of New Labour "successes". A great showman – but an average statesman (more)
