Mr Tony - it's goodbye from him.

Well almost goodbye anyway. I can't resist a comment on our PM as he reaches the gradual end of his career and waves ta-ta to the Labour Party conference. After all it's his government that has been the architect of the most recent 10 year drugs strategy.

Did drugs policy turn to dust in our mouths after New Labour's win in '97. Yes and no. Yes because of the continued and wasteful emphasis on law'n'order as an answer to drug use/dealing/importation etc. We now have more people in prison than ever before, many of them on drug-related offences. We have a miltary presence in Afghanistan at huge cost, without support of NATO (thanks partners) and are impotently overseeing the best Afghan opium harvest in God knows how long. Our Navy operates all around the world on drug interdiction work, notably in the Carribean, but the price of cocaine and crack just keeps on dropping. Despite the government's best efforts new drugs have arrived with a bang and rapidly become established on the scene (crack/cocaine again).

But no, because there have been some good results. More people are in treatment than ever before and are being seen quicker and more effectively. We know a lot more about the importance of retaining people in treatment and, despite some worrying signs we have succeeded in keeping HIV infections amongst IDU's to a relatively low proportion of the injecting community. Contrast this to the US which is seeing near 3rd World rates of infection amongst injectors in some parts of the country.

So two cheers for Mr Tony and his drugs policy.

Am I sorry to see him go? Well there's always the chance he won't. Who knows what might happen between now and his intended gold watch and goodbye kiss time? One can imagine a major event - another 7/7 which forces him to stay on 'for the good of the country because collegaues have prevailed on him to stay'. Or whatever. But presuming he does go I'll miss some of his routines.

• He does seem a reasonably paid up member of the human race.
• It's been lovely to see 10 Downing St inhabited by a family and kids again.
• Great sense of humour.
• The minimum wage, devolution of Scotland and Wales and a peace of sorts in Northern Ireland - all good things.

And the rubbish? Iraq. Or rather the hiding of the truth. If he'd said at the beginning that we were going in to get rid of Saddam we might have gone along with it. But the dissembling and half truths about WMD and the slavish following of US policy blotted his copy-book for ever.