Changes

At the end of [[A View from the Foothills by Chris Mullin|A View from the Foothills]] we left Chris Mullin wondering why he was no longer Tony Blair's Africa minister at the Foreign Office. He was never to get a definitive answer to this, but was later told that Blair handed out the junior ministerial appointments rather like sweets, with few worries about how people would feel if they were missed out or sacked. In Decline and Fall we see Chris come down from the foothills of politics and return to the backbenches. He might no longer be in a position of power, but he's still in the thick of it. Perhaps though, some of the enjoyment is draining away from the job as he sees himself with years more of doing nothing very important.

Perhaps the most striking point is that an administration which seemed to make use of the spin doctor failed to make any capital at all out of the fact that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were the people who pulled the global financial system back from the brink of collapse. It's no secret in other countries but doesn't seem to be considered in the UK and there's a hope that history will treat Brown more kindly than the voters have done. Here Brown is ''blamed'' for the financial crisis. The Conservatives make much of the debts that have been left to them – failing to mention that the cause of the problem were the city bankers.