"I ask you to accept one thing - hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. "
"I have been prime minister for just over 10 years. In this job, in the world today, that is long enough for me but more especially for the country. Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down . . .
I was born almost a decade after the second World War. I was a young man in the social revolution of the '60s and '70s. I reached political maturity as the Cold War was ending, and the world was going through a political, economic and technological revolution.
I looked at my own country - a great country, wonderful history, magnificent traditions, proud of its past, but strangely uncertain of its future, almost old-fashioned.
All of that was curiously symbolised in its politics. None of it made sense to me. It was 20th-century ideology in a world approaching a new millennium.So 1997 was a moment for a new beginning, for sweeping away all the detritus of the past.
Think back . . . Think about your own living standards then in May 1997 and now. Visit your local school, any of them round here, or anywhere in Britain.
Ask when you last had to wait a year or more on a hospital waiting list, or heard of pensioners freezing to death, unable to heat their homes.
There is only one government since 1945 that can say all of the following: more jobs, fewer unemployed, better health and education results, lower crime, and economic growth in every quarter - this one . . .
Look at our economy - at ease with globalisation, London the world's financial centre. Visit our great cities and compare them with 10 years ago. No country attracts overseas investment like we do.
Think about the culture of Britain in 2007. I don't just mean our arts that are thriving. I mean our values - the minimum wage, paid holidays, amongst the best maternity pay and leave in Europe, equality for gay people.
Or look at the debates that reverberate round the world - the global movement to support Africa in its struggle against poverty, climate change, the fight against terrorism. Britain is not a follower, it is a leader . . .
This is a country today that, for all its faults, is comfortable in the 21st century, at home in its own skin, able not just to be proud of its past but confident of its future. I don't think Northern Ireland would have been changed unless Britain had changed, or the Olympics won if we were still the Britain of 1997 . . .
What I had to learn, however, as prime minister was what putting the country first really meant. Decision-making is hard. Everyone always says 'Listen to the people'. The trouble is they don't always agree . . . And, in time, you realise putting the country first doesn't mean doing the right thing according to conventional wisdom or the prevailing consensus . . . it means doing what you genuinely believe to be right . . .
Sometimes the decisions are accepted quite quickly. Bank of England independence was one, which gave us our economic stability. Sometimes, like tuition fees or trying to break up old monolithic public services, they are deeply controversial, hellish hard to do, but you can see you are moving with the grain of change round the world.
Sometimes, like with Europe, where I believe Britain should keep its position strong, you know you are fighting opinion but you are content with doing so . . .In Sierra Leone and to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, I took the decision to make our country one that intervened, that did not pass by.
Then came the utterly unanticipated and dramatic. September 11th, 2001, and the death of 3,000 or more on the streets of New York. I decided we should stand shoulder to shoulder with our oldest ally. I did so out of belief.
So Afghanistan and then Iraq, the latter bitterly controversial. Removing Saddam and his sons from power, as with removing the Taliban, was over with relative ease. But the blowback since, from global terrorism and those elements that support it, has been fierce and unrelenting and costly. For many, it simply isn't and can't be worth it. For me, I think we must see it through. They, the terrorists, who threaten us here and round the world, will never give up if we give up . . .
Great expectations not fulfilled in every part, for sure.
Occasionally people say, as I said earlier, "They were too high, you should have lowered them". But, to be frank, I would not have wanted it any other way. I was, and remain, as a person and as a prime minister, an optimist . . .
So, of course, the vision is painted in the colours of the rainbow, and the reality is sketched in the duller tones of black, white and grey.
But I ask you to accept one thing - hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That's your call. But believe one thing if nothing else - I did what I thought was right for our country.
I came into office with high hopes for Britain's future. I leave it with even higher hopes for Britain's future . . . I have been very lucky and very blessed. This country is a blessed nation. The British are special - the world knows it; in our innermost thoughts, we know it. This is the greatest nation on Earth ...
I give my thanks to you, the British people, for the times I have succeeded, and my apologies to you for the times I have fallen short. Good luck."