So Tony Blair was not led from 10 Downing Street in handcuffs as his enemies had dreamed: he departed the political stage on the crest of a wave of goodwill such as few prime ministers have experienced before him. The House of Commons stood, clapped and cheered, as if to say, whatever his faults and mistakes, here was a brilliant political performer, second to none, taking his final curtain. It was the last act of his premiership and the first step in a change of Government that concluded, later the same day, with Gordon Brown installed as his successor: a bloodless coup. For it was a forced exit, at least in its timing, as Mr Blair had had to name an earlier date than he would have wanted for his departure in order to keep the peace in the Labour Party. Whether party members agreed with his Iraq policy or not, they knew the issue had sundered the Labour Government from its grassroots in a way that would prove fatal without drastic surgery.

Given Mr Blair's style of government, Iraq or something like it was bound to happen sooner or later. The manipulative use of information, the half-truths that were all the more potent for being believed by those who uttered them, were to be applied not just to Iraq but to a host of policy areas. The final irony is that, even when services like health and education are improving, the public refuses to believe it. Thus did the Blair style, regarded by the public as synonymous with spin, rebound to deprive him of the credit he was entitled to. Yet on Wednesday there was just an echo of that May Day euphoria of a decade ago. Mr Blair's rehabilitation, even on the Left, should not yet be regarded as a lost cause.

In the area of the public services, his key word was "reform". But Mr Blair was never satisfied to preach reform and leave it to the professionals to deliver. His Government became meddlers and fixers, with a battery of targets and league tables designed to force the pace. But while one target might have been useful ...

Pope Benedict XVI has made it clear that he would like to end the almost universal prohibition on celebration of the Tridentine Mass. He has run into some opposition, and the reasons are worth examining. One of the few exceptions to the prohibition was an indult (the technical term for permission to deviate from Church law) obtained by the bishops of England and Wales, which gave individual bishops in those countries ...

Cafod, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, is a success story the Catholic Church in England and Wales can be proud of. Indeed, such is the quality of its staff that Lesley-Anne Knight, head of its international office, has just been elected secretary general of Caritas Internationalis, the world's second-largest aid organisation after the Red Cross. She succeeds Duncan McLaren, who in an interview with ...

Democracy is not entirely understood by the Catholic Church. During the 2004 presidential election in the United States, certain Catholic bishops intervened to warn Catholic electors not to back Senator John Kerry because, despite his personal opposition to abortion, he refused to impose that view via legislation. They threatened to withhold Holy Communion from him if the opportunity presented itself. That was the ...