Assessing the record
Well, that's what the audience was telling Five Live...
...over on Radio Four we got a few more of the "why are you doing this" style of email (sample: "Tony Blair is NOT DEAD. Please spare us the endless obituaries. Today's programme has been totally dominated - we're NOT INTERESTED, & I suspect many share my opinion. Please do not pander to this man's search for a legacy, & especially do not carry on this for the next 6 weeks").
Well I can assure listeners about the last point - even we have a boredom threshold and I'm pretty close to reaching mine.
However, I still think it was right to take the opportunity today to assess the record... and although other listeners have a visceral hatred of Alastair Campbell, I thought the discussion with him, William Hague and Charles Kennedy was pretty interesting stuff (you can listen to the whole programme 
here). Martha secured us the exclusive, and first, interview with Blair's confidante Sally Morgan and I enjoyed Nick Robinson's account of the Blair speech and his final essay.
Despite the advance notice it was still a hectic morning all round, especially at College Green at the heart of the circus. We tried to make room to stand back and assess the past ten years - maybe you thought we did so too much.
Of course there's now a danger we'll go overboard on the Brown succession. We'll try to avoid that, but I'd be interested to know what it is about him and his likely Government you feel merits airtime.
In the meantime, to the man who found this lunchtime's Scarlatti concerto on R3 more diverting, I'm sorry.
Comments
I felt in the end with Blair that I could forgive him for Iraq, but I just didn't trust him with education and the health service.
I'd be interested in hearing how Brown is expected to handle public services, and in particular, how (whether?) he'll be different from Blair in that respect.
"I'd be interested to know what it is about him and his likely government you feel merits airtime."
I feel that actual fact-based reporting may merit airtime.
What won't merit airtime is endless speculation by political commentators and think-tank talking heads over what Gordon Brown might or might not do, or which person he will appoint to this or that post, or what his policies may or may not be. But that's what we'll get for the next two months, right? Why pretend otherwise?