Saddam coming back to bite Blair

ENOCH POWELL came up with some nasty stuff during his long political career. But there were a few diamonds on the dungheap. The best was his observation that all political careers end in failure.

Next Thursday, Tony Blair will steer New Labour to its third election victory. But unlike the previous romps, this will be grim, hollow and pyrrhic.

To be sure, a victory is a victory. But there are victories and there are victories. The legendary French climbers Maurice Hertzog and Louis Lachenal made the first ascent of an 8,000-metre mountain when they scaled Annapurna in 1950. But they paid an appalling price in the process. Caught in a storm when descending, both sustained frost-bite so serious that it necessitated the amputation of all their fingers and toes.