THIS year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, a practice that arguably helped increase the prosperity of Worcester.

Back in the days when the Severn was a major highway, the Faithful City's links with Bristol meant that the profits of human serfdom would almost certainly have certainly enriched a number of local people.

All the same, I don't see why Tony Blair should say sorry on my behalf. I simply refuse to beat myself up over slavery, just as I wouldn't expect present-day Catholics to wear sack cloth and ashes because their forebears burned one of my ancestors at the stake in 1555.

I fully realise that the many Catholics of my acquaintance are not to blame and I don't need to be nannied into thinking otherwise.

Blair increasingly seems to think he is the conscience of the nation - is there no limit to the vanity of this fatuous clown?