Did the earth move for you?

Were you up for Portillo? That was a phrase that enters the lexicon just over ten years ago and epitomised the landslide that took Blair to the door of Downing Street. Since then there have been 29,848 pages of legislation and 74,748 pages of statutory instruments add to the country's ever growing archive of laws but at what cost, and I don't just mean financial?

The political obituaries today everywhere, carry analysis of what Blair "did" in his ten years as Prime Minister. The same old, and might I say, tired lines are rolled out across the board. Low interests rates, no negative growth in any quarter, blah, blah, blah. I don't really need to go over them again, save to say that they're largely just statistics and a belief that the numbers are what matter.

Occasionally they have the spattering of dishonesty too. Take for example the use of the British Crime Survey to argue that crime has fallen whilst the recorded crime figure show it has risen. This is not itself dishonest, but it remains true that when in Opposition, the British Crime Survey was rubbished and the recorded crime figures were cited as proof of the failure of the previous Tory Administration. It is richly ironic, but that's politics all over in some respects.

However, behind the tub-thumping of statistics about how Britain is a much better place, Blair's legacy, in totality, is his negative impact on the culture of politics and the wider political culture of the nation. The state is now seen by many in this country as the ultimate arbiter for solving every single one of the nations problems. If a scandalous tale breaks in the news today it is standard practice to propose a new law to solve it.

Everything, and anything that happens in the wider society follows on with the call of "what is the Government doing about this?" This reaction has been nurtured and helped along by Blair's tenure. Last night, the former spinner-in-chief, Alastair Campbell was on Channel 4 saying that it was only the media who were obsessed with the presentational aspect of Government. This is not true, the cynicism that has grown towards Government on the matter is not just the fault of the media, it is the fault of the Government and Blair himself for wanting to be "seen to be doing something".

It is simple to pluck a tale of the last ten years out of the air and show why. Take, in recent months, the revelation that the three main players in the "cash for peerages" allegations had a meeting where they discussed how they would deal with the Police investigation and media together. Even earlier take the Philip Gould memos and Blair comments about "eye-catching initiatives" being needed. It began on the first day in 1997 when the hoards of well-wisher cheered Tony Blair into Number Ten. The well wishers who were party people who ran down the road from Millbank.

The cult of personality around Blair, turning him from Prime Minister into de facto el Presidente, began all those years ago. "The Downing Street Grid" becoming a defining factor of the past decade. Plotting the media line for the week ahead and doing everything in your power to create that through whatever means. This culminated in the tragic death of man who was used as a pawn in a side battle with a BBC that was not playing ball anymore.

As I said above, we can poor over the statistics all we wish, but people, that is ordinary people who, you know what, actually don't give a shit if the waiting lists are down overall when they themselves are waiting for something, will always make their judgements on their own experience. So how was it for you I wonder? Did the earth move?

For me, I see a Government that promised to pure and free from dodgy practices who within months was doing exactly those things it said it wouldn't - only worse. For me, it has been the expansion of a quango state that they said they wanted to dismantle. For me it is has been the, "I didn't do anything wrong" followed by the "he has the full backing of the Prime Minister", then the "let's draw a line under this and move on", chased by the "it is with regret I must resign to stop hurting the party", and finally the "He was such a good minister and I welcome him back into Government".