“WE DON'T want to lose you, but we think you ought to go.” The
words on the famous first world war recruiting poster sum up the
tangle of emotions that gripped the Labour conference in
Manchester after Tony Blair's beautifully judged farewell speech
to his party. Labour is apprehensive of the future without Mr
Blair and well aware that his likely successor has neither a
fraction of his star quality nor the perfect pitch of his appeal
to the crucial voters of middle England. But they also applauded
when the prime minister said that although letting go was hard,
it was right “for the country, and for you, the party”.  There
were many in the G-Mex hall who found themselves wondering why
they were getting rid of their party's most prolific election-
winner while he was clearly still at the height of his powers.
But if Mr Blair had not been heading gracefully for the exit,
the mood would have been very different.  For most of his party,
the damage done to Mr Blair's popularity by the war in Iraq and
his closeness t