Standard language of a soon to be departing politico, you might think. No surprise Blair used is in his interview this morning.

But surely the standard, talking about the public, is “it has been an honour and a privilege to serve them” – not, as Blair phrased it – “an honour and a privilege to lead them”.

A minor, pedantic, semantic point from a long interview, but one, I think, worth making.

While I’m on the pedantry, another minor point: he refused to quit tomorrow because “that’s not a very democratic way to get a [new] Prime Minister”.

Unlike, of course, our current – hugely democratic – system of allowing individual parties to select their leader in whatever way they choose, who is then – if the party as a whole manages to gain a sufficient number of parliamentary seats to form a government (though not necessarily a majority of seats, nor even necessarily more seats than any other party) – appointed to the highest office in the land by a single little old lady (by dint of her being related to some people who were good at fighting wars several hundred years ago…)

(By the by, I’ve been asked to give this a plug, so I will – depite not necessarily endorsing the message – Anyone But Labour)