Tony’s unfulfilled commitments

And so the end is near and Tony Blair faces his final curtain. There was a decidedly end-of-term feel about yesterday’s state opening of Parliament as the party leaders traded verbal broadsides across the House.

But as Mr Blair begins the long, slow business of handing over to his successor, nine little words hurled by David Cameron sum up the whole affair:

“He promised so much yet has delivered so little,” declared the Tory leader.

And who can argue with that? Tony Blair came to power with a massive majority.

He had the Parliamentary power to move mountains, and yet his achievements can be measured in molehills.

He has scrapped the old House of Lords without providing any sensible replacement.

He has exposed a generation of students to horrendous levels of debt.

He has poured billions of pounds into our schools but done nothing for the tens of thousands of teenagers who leave schools unable to read or write properly.

He has granted virtual home rule to Ulster, Wales and Scotland but has left England without any independent voice. The result is the daily indignity of English affairs being decided by Scottish Labour MPs.

He has pumped enormous sums of money into the NHS and yet hospital departments are closing, NHS jobs are axed and the horrific scandal of MRSA infection still stalks the wards.

But above all, Tony Blair’s legacy will be Iraq, the unnecessary (and possibly illegal) war which has cost tens of thousands of innocent lives.

His apparent successor Gordon Brown is talking of an “explosive” first 100 days in office to transform Britain.

Tony Blair promised much the same. How quickly his New Labour explosion turned into a damp squib.

Backing Beatties in the name game

Has any company boss ever been more out of touch with his customers than Jon Asgeir Johannesson?

The boss of the Icelandic company Baugur says that the name of Beatties “lacks resonance” with shoppers.

Try telling that to the hundreds of Beatties fans who have been jamming the Express & Star phone lines in protest.

As our Beattie Bear feature shows today, there is widespread fury at Baugur’s plan to replace the Beatties name with House of Fraser.

Beatties is a Midland institution.

These stores will continue to be known as Beatties whatever the new owners decree and whatever sign is put up outside.

The best bosses are the ones who are big enough, occasionally, to admit they were wrong. Over to you, Mr Johannesson.