Stiff upper lip: Siôn Simon writes about what it's like to go blind - because he doesn't want to embarrass his friends:

'Being British, I have a horror of making a fuss. In fact, I feel rude telling people that I am going blind. What are they supposed to say? All they can possibly offer is what they always do: ‘Oh dear. How terrible. You poor chap. I´m dreadfully sorry.´ Some women do the verbal hugging thing. Men, almost without exception, are mightily embarrassed. It´s horrible to watch. Notwithstanding the incorrigible hack reflex to get a column out of anything that waggles its tail, the main reason for writing this is to save myself 100 such conversations.' [Spectator].

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Blair poll shock: According to a Daily Mirror poll, 43 per cent of the Great British public trust Mr Blair less than they did at the time of his landslide victory on May 1 1997; 68 per cent accuse him of spending too much time abroad; 40 per cent believe life has got worse under Labour; 62 per cent say the Government has failed to tackle crime.

However, 62 per cent still think he has done quite well, very well or brilliantly as PM. [Daily Mirror].

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Fooled again: John 'last hack out of Saigon' Pilger argues that it's Blair's free market ideology that lies behind the British people's lack of faith in parliamentary politics:

'People were not apathetic; they went on strike. They understood that the politicians on offer, like the pigs and men at the conclusion of George Orwell's great novel Animal Farm, were virtually the same.' [Daily Mirror].

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