Things could only get better. In some ways, they did.

A lot of people have been crowing about the departure of Tony Blair and saying that he achieved very little of real substance during his tenure. I'm not going to talk about politics, because I can't be bothered.

However, I'd like us to look back before he became Labour leader, in 1994, when life in Britain really was poor. Ace of Base got to number one, we were all wearing Global Hypercolour T-shirts (remember, the ones that changed from luminous pink to luminous green as your body temperature increased) and the England football team was a real shambles (yes, even worse than now).

Here's a documentary (about an hour, watch it tonight with a glass of wine) that reminds us of the bad old days. Under Blair, we never missed a World Cup. Under Major, and this man, we never made one: