But just as the delegates were walking home asking themselves why he was going at all, and wouldn't they like him to stay on, and such like, Craig Brown's new book lands to puncture Blair's balloon.

The Tony Years, running to more than 400 pages, spares no-one, least of all Mr Blair, from its searing wit. Its impartiality is its strength: barely an ego passes by without Brown blowing a raspberry.

Patricia Hewitt is nailed hard for condescension, Blair is inane and repetitive. The procession of Tory leaders since Major are each cuttingly lampooned. Outside of politics, glamour model Jordan shares her surgical diary for her third boob.

British Ambassador to Washington Sir Christopher Meyer is an easy target but comfortably dispatched. So much so it's impossible to return to his DC memoirs without recalling him as an insufferable prig.

Some of the minor characters are even better served. For a spot-on slur on the disgraced Tory MP you'll struggle to beat: "It would be wrong to suggest that Neil Hamilton is his own worst enemy when there are so many people better qualified for the post."

But Brown delivers more in colourful satire than in one-liners. His portraits are lasting, and his cutting eye contagious. Few of his subjects walk away from the book without a permanent, and ludicrous, stumble in their step.