There were warm tributes in the House of Commons to the outstanding British politician of his generation, writes Frank Millarin London
Tears and cheers. Deep-felt pain and a profound sense of loss. Yet excitement, too, and the confident expectation that greets new life in all its possibilities.
Labour, old and new, ran the full gamut of emotions yesterday as Tony Blair and Gordon Brown defied much expectation - their own included, at times - to deliver the promised stable and orderly transition, allowing their party to celebrate its past success while savouring the prospect, perhaps, of more to come.
It took barely 90 minutes for the change to sweep through Whitehall, during which time Blair arrived, then Brown, and both men took their leave from the king's door in the courtyard at Buckingham Palace - Blair by then a Middle East envoy, Brown Queen Elizabeth's 11th prime minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Brown had waited a virtual lifetime for the moment - and certainly since 1983, when he and a young Blair entered parliament together for the first time. In 1992, following Neil Kinnock's shattering defeat by John Major, Blair thought Brown and not John Smith should succeed to the leadership. All that changed barely two years later when Brown hesitated following Smith's untimely death and subsequently stood aside in favour of Blair. After "New" Labour's 1997 landslide victory they formed the most successful relationship between a prime minister and chancellor in living memory.
Yet this brilliant pairing could also prove explosive and dysfunctional, poisoned by Brown's belief that Blair had reneged on a promise to make way for him during a second term. And even yesterday, as he endured Blair's final prime minister's question time in the Commons, the impatient Brown could have been forgiven for briefly wondering if, even at the last, his friend and rival might somehow deny him.
For listening in the gallery during those final 30 minutes, there were moments when the rest of us still found it hard to believe that Blair - the triple election winner, most successful Labour leader in history, and, still, outstanding politician of his generation - was actually going.
Northern Ireland MPs had struggled to make themselves heard during their earlier question time as MPs arrived in the chamber earlier than usual, generating an excitable buzz ahead of what promised to be a historic set-piece confrontation across the dispatch box. And it would in the end prove a momentous occasion, if not in the way Labour MPs had expected. There were flashes of Blair humour, as when he dismissed a Liberal Democrat question about his advice for Brown on the disestablishment of the Church of England. "I'm not really bothered about that one," he shrugged. And again, the "au revoir, auf wiedersehen, arrivederci" with which he responded to a predictable demand from Tory right-winger Sir Nicholas Winterton for a referendum on the new EU treaty.
Blair also told the story of the day when he replied to a traditional question asking him to list his engagements: "I have had meetings with colleagues earlier today but have no further such meetings later today, or any other day." Yet this showpiece also bordered on the mundane, and Blair still seemed very much in charge as David Cameron asked him about military casualties in Afghanistan, equipment for troops in Iraq and contingency planning to deal with the current flooding crisis, before paying tribute to the departing prime minister's "considerable achievements", not least in the developing world and in securing peace in Northern Ireland, and wishing him and his family well for the future.
This was a brilliant strategy by Cameron, who clearly anticipated he was set for a verbal pasting with a long rehearsal of Labour achievements and past Conservative failures. But if he denied some Labour MPs the gladiatorial contest they had hoped for, Cameron set the tone for the tributes from Ian Paisley and others, which made this a true "House of Commons" rather than a party political occasion.
Left-winger Jeremy Corbyn remained true to his convictions, asking Blair one last time to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. However, even veteran opponents of the war knew the truth simply told by Father of the House Alan Williams, who thanked Blair for leading Labour "out of 18 years of wilderness" and into "10 years of government, with more to come". Blair replied by confessing that he had never been "a great House of Commons man", but insisting he had "never stopped fearing it".
And when he avowed his belief in politics was still intact - an arena sometimes for "low skulduggery", but more often still "the place for the pursuit of noble causes" - Cameron had no hesitation in prompting reluctant Tories to join in an unprecedented standing ovation that finally threatened to overwhelm the emotional Blair.
Just 45 minutes later, after a tearful farewell to staff and a final photocall with his wife and family on the steps of No 10, Blair's Daimler swung in to Buckingham Palace for a final audience with Queen Elizabeth, to whom he tendered his resignation. He and Cherie were gone 25 minutes later as staff at the treasury cheered the departing chancellor on his way to that second, much longer audience, during which Brown accepted "the invitation of her majesty the queen to form a new government".
Looking perhaps just a shade nervous, his wife Sarah smiling beside him, the new prime minister faced the Downing Street cameras for the first time, declaring that his would indeed be "a new government with new priorities". Travelling the country and listening to the British people, said Brown, he had "heard the need for change". He also knew this need could not be met by "the old politics". So he promised: "I will build a government that uses all the talents; I will invite men and women of goodwill to contribute their energies in a new spirit of public service to make our nation what it can be." Recalling his school motto - words that had stayed with him since his childhood and mattered a great deal on this day - Brown said: "I will try my utmost." And with that he went inside No 10 to see "the work of change begin".