Few missed the coincidence of Paul Wolfowitz resigning from the World Bank on the same day Tony Blair was bidding farewell to Washington. Nor did the travails of Alberto Gonzales, the US attorney-general, who faces a vote of no confidence in the Senate next week, and who is closely associated with the alleged US excesses in the “war on terror”, escape parallel.

Seven Republican senators have joined the Democrats in calling for Mr Gonzales to go over the alleged politically motivated firing of eight federal prosecutors late last year. One way or another most of the hardliners who dominated the first Bush administration have fallen by the wayside in the past 20 months – although for largely unrelated reasons.