Pathological egomania and crocodile tears

This week has seen the publication of the most hotly anticipated work of fiction since the last Harry Potter book.

So what have we learned with the publication of the life and times of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, except that he's a bigger liar and fantasist than ever?

We've seen some whitewashes recently - the Butler report, the Hutton report, the probing at the Iraq inquiry are three which immediately spring to mind - all of which have one thing in common: they saved Blair's blushes.

But there was no need to hire a retired Whitehall mandarin to bleach his smalls prior to public inspection this time.

No, when it comes to revisionism and self-aggrandising Blair has shown himself to be rivalled by no man with the possible exception of Baron Munchausen.

A Journey he grandiloquently entitled his tome, though it's not so much a mea culpa as a "what, me?"

What to make of this over-the-counter ordure?

For reasons of taste we will gloss over the romantic elements of the book much in the way that Blair has glossed over any reference to wrongdoing or duplicity on his part. Although there is at least one reference to him "devouring" Cherie's love "like an animal" and an equally alarming Women In Love-style homoerotic reference to Blair and Brown being like "two lovers" who couldn't wait to get down to love-making, conjuring up the queazy image of the two of them wrestling naked on the rug in No 10.

But his bid for Barbara Cartland's pink-tinged tiara aside, his attempt to cast himself as a reluctant hero facing the forces of darkness shows just how self-deluded he really is.

One of the most bizarre excerpts shows that he deliberately sabotaged the fox-hunting ban because he did not know the depth of feeling it would evoke.

Blair claiming that public outrage swayed his opinion?

Two million people on the streets didn't "sway" his opinion about the war did it? But a few uppity horsey types complaining that they were being deprived their "sport" and prevented from hounding an innocent animal to its death and he backflips quicker than a Romanian gymnast on steroids.

And speaking of the war, Blair claimed he was desperately sorry for those who died and indeed had wept tears for them, but surprise, surprise, won't apologise for it.

He even has the gall to tell people to "keep an open mind" which one can't help feeling is advice he should probably have heeded himself in 2003.

Then, in time-honoured fashion he played the "I'm just an ordinary guy" card by admitting that he turned to drink to deal with the stresses of the job. Not "excessively excessively," he is quick to state.

Although it appears that Blair may have been indulging in a cheeky Vimto or two while penning his book. Having done his best to play down the achievements of Northern Ireland secretary Mo Mowlam in bringing about the peace process and claim the glory for himself, he makes a further bid to boast of his earnest intervention, this time with the Saville inquiry into Bloody Sunday - but he drops the ball spectacularly.

He states: "To assuage nationalist opinion and under pressure from the Irish, I also ordered an inquiry into the Bloody Sunday shootings in 1972, when British troops had opened fire on protesters in Belfast, killing a number of people."

Belfast! Not Derry then?

If you're trying to claim credit for something you would think you might actually try to get your facts straight.

Further proof if any were needed that whether it be the murdered people of Derry or the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians slaughtered in his name, Blair couldn't care less.