At last the Tories are setting the political agenda, and Blair is running scared

Shortly before Christmas last year I went off to write a book about a malign modern trend, the rise of political lying. Regrettably, during the two months I have been absent, the lying has continued unabated. In other respects, however, British politics has changed.

Back in December there was a widespread assumption, bordering on certainty, that Tony Blair was heading for a third successive landslide victory. You could tell this by the way the two parties were conducting themselves in public. In the case of New Labour, the real battle was the contest to succeed Tony Blair on some indeterminate date after the general election, while the election itself was taken for granted.

Among the Tories it was abject gloom. Michael Howard, who looked tired, was written off. It was clear that there was going to be a great Liberal Democrat revival at the election, but nobody seriously thought that the Conservatives would add more than a handful of seats.