I love Marina Hyde, I do

For Blair to be brought down by a disastrous war is at least epic. But by his tennis partner? It hardly places one in the big league:

Read the whole thing yourself on the guardian site - this is the first bit...

"Given the prime minister's fabled obsession with his legacy, it is difficult to imagine headlines that could depress him more than the current ones drawn from newspaper briefings by 'sources close to Lord Levy'. Having had his bank holiday breakfast ruined by the many variations on 'I won't be Blair's fall guy, says Levy', one pictures Blair sinking back against the pillows and wondering how far the relentless commuting of his expectations will have to go.

Of course, his capacity for self-delusion is almost unmatched, so there is a chance that he still fancies people will remember him for one of his many - if occasionally contradictory - NHS reforms or the hundreds of hours spent not actually banning foxhunting. However, the realists in his circle must by now be aware that - at least in the immediate aftermath - the PM will to a large extent be defined by whichever final straw forces his departure.

To be brought down by an overweening rival is rather Shakespearean. To be brought down by a disastrous war at least has some kind of epic quality to it. To be brought down by one's tennis partner ... well, you have to say it hardly places one in the big league. Even if the serve-volleyer in question did discover Alvin Stardust."

and here's a killer - I haven't found a trace of this blog yet, but doubtless it exists somewhere in cyberspace...

"Upsettingly, there are those cynics who continue to question what precisely these men did fork out for, and last weekend they were joined by Dr Nick Bowes, Labour's former head of high value fundraising. In a remarkably candid weblog - since removed from the internet - Dr Bowes broached the subject that has hung largely unspoken as the row refuses to go away. "Most of them are genuinely nice people," he wrote of the donor-loaners, "although I question their personal politics. What I mean by this is that they are basically Tories, saw which way the wind was blowing and did what they needed to get the peerage they've always wished for.""