They are not coming to take him way

Blair's interview with the BBC's Andrew Marr on Wednesday night revealed the extent to which the former prime minister occupies a parallel universe - one signposted with moral absolutes and blind faith in his own divine mission to shape the world, regardless of the human cost.

Safely incubated from reality in a bubble of self-delusion, one which, if anything, has grown rather than diminished in his time out of front-line politics, Blair set about the hoary task of rewriting history for the benefit of middle England, the only constituency he ever truly embraced.

Interspersed with warm and fuzzy insights into life inside No 10 were spine-chilling pronouncements of moral certainty over the decisions taken on Iraq, attributing the violence which resulted not, as any rational human being might, to the principle of cause and effect but to that good old-fashioned savagery common to all subject peoples who're in desperate need of a little civilising.

Not content with that, with customary messianic glee he then went on to assert that not only did he not regret the decision to go into Iraq, he would do it all over again when it came to Iran.

By this point in proceedings you would have been forgiven for expecting to hear the flapping of white coats in the background.

But, no, it soon became clear than not only is the man mad, he's a mad man on the loose, allowed to travel the world as Middle East peace envoy spreading his Manichean worldview like Dr Strangelove on steroids.

Comparatively benign tit-bits such as the fact he had a feeling a month before former Labour leader John Smith died that he would, well, that he would die, thus paving the way for his path to the leadership and No 10, seemed almost rational coming from him.

And of course, the ban on fox-hunting and the Freedom of Information Act were brushed aside as ill-thought attempts to tinker around with complicated issues like foxes being ripped to shreds by packs of dogs in the countryside and government being able to fabricate excuses for going to war without having to worry about meddlesome citizens and journalists getting in the way.

As for his analysis of the current political scene, nothing really new was revealed. Blair remains to the marrow of his bones the Tory we always knew he was.

In fact, it would not have come as a surprise if he'd announced that David Cameron was in fact his long lost younger brother.

The bulk of the interview, and, it appears, the central thrust of his book, was Blair's relationship with Gordon Brown.

Here, nothing was held back as he set about destroying the personal and political reputation of his former chancellor, even to the point of taking credit for the major economic decisions that were taken during his tenure in office.

Over the past year a slew of new Labour epigones have gone to bat attacking Blair's successor, with words like imbalanced, unstable and worse used to paint a picture of a man who'd plotted and schemed that much to get into No 10, he'd become deranged in the process.

It was a disgusting attack by Blair on his former friend and colleague, made worse by the fact he used it to launch a barely concealed endorsement of David Miliband as next in line to the throne.

One of the few redeeming features of the Roman empire was that whenever an official in high office disgraced themselves, they were given the option of taking the honourable way out.

No such custom now exists, but at the very least surely now somebody somewhere should take out a restraining order to keep this lying warmonger away from political office of any stripe. Surely.