TOMORROW, Tony Blair celebrates Britain's longest continuous period of Labour rule - but the wonderboy who could once do no wrong might not be in the mood for a party.

What a difference nine years make. After succeeding the late John Smith in 1994, he set about completing the modernisation of the party - and what a revolution it was.

Out went Labour's historic relationship with the unions. Out went the Clause Four commandment on nationalisation.

Instead he stormed the Tories' moral high ground - on crime, immigration issues and education - and walked in to Downing Street as if on water.

The economy performed well in the following years but, if the youthful looks soon gave second-best to the troubles of the world, the haggard face now is more to do with his own world of troubles.

He swept to power after 18 years of divisive Tory rule built on sleaze, confrontation politics, and worshipping the God of 'Me, Me, Me', but the momentum has long gone.

The House of Lords reform is incomplete, hunting remains legal, foundation hospitals are treated with suspicion, and education's in a crisis.

He's slowly being swallowed by a self-induced cyclone of spin, and Iraq tops the lot - a war fought over weapons of mass destruction which, he now admits, might not exist.

Perhaps worse, while Britain queues for hospitals, pays for school books via jumble sales, and wonders how many body bags will come home on a plane to Brize Norton, he laps up the adulation of the United States Congress.

His response to the death of Dr David Kelly, the Ministry of Defence scientist at the centre of the "sexed-up" Iraq dossier crisis, was uninspiring.

One day he implored the media to let Lord Hutton's inquiry take its course without interference - the next he declared he had nothing to do with the Government's release of Dr Kelly's name as the 'mole'.

Has the wonderboy lost control? There are many beginning to think that way.