Blair helped Bush win, and he will be rewarded

Not long before midnight on Tuesday, a mood of dogmatic certitude overcame the throng of British MPs, ministers and journalists assembled at the traditional election-night party at the American embassy in Grosvenor Square. We knew that John Kerry had won, and dismissed with knowing contempt the warnings of our hosts — whose election, after all, it was — that it was far too early to tell.

A delicious report went round that shares in Halliburton, the construction company associated with Vice-President Dick Cheney, had crashed on Wall Street shortly after 4 p.m. local time, in reaction to the first unofficial exit polls. One lonely Foreign Office official, along with Bruce Anderson, the political columnist, challenged the prevailing mood. Mr Anderson’s right arm is in plaster, the result of falling down a flight of stairs at Westminster Underground station after lunch the other week. His left was still happily capable of holding a glass and, thus fortified, he accurately predicted victory for the incumbent.