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Following months of speculation, Tony Blair has finally announced he is standing down as the Quartet Representative to the Middle East after eight years in the post. It is tempting to ask whether anyone will notice. His time in the job has been marked by a stagnation of the Peace Process, a hardening of the position of increasingly belligerent Israeli governments and a growing distrust among the Palestinians. Tony Blair himself had long become an irrelevance in negotiations. The truth is that Blair was hamstrung from the moment he took the job (immediately after he stood down as Prime Minister in 2007). He was never a 'Peace Envoy', although there was hope in some circles that he would bring the lessons of Northern Ireland to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The Sun reports this morning that Ed Miliband recently made a late-night visit to Russell Brand's £2 million home. Details on what was discussed remain unknown, although Labour has now confirmed that rather than Miliband's own François Hollande moment, or a pre-emptive mansion tax inspection, it was in fact an interview. A friend of mine lives opposite Russell Brand and snapped this picture of Ed Milliband leaving his house...urm pic.twitter.com/kHGVWFbpVZ — Elisa Misu Solaris (@ElisaMisu) April 27, 2015 However, if Miliband is to appear in an episode of Brand's online show The Trews, it's unclear what the Labour leader hopes to gain from it. Is this really an endorsement any serious potential Prime Minister would want?

When journalists have the much sought after opportunity to interview the heads of states and organisations with appalling human rights records the very least we expect is to see such people given a thorough cross-examining. What we don’t expect is for heads of terrorist organisations to be provided with a platform from which to give the equivalent of a party political broadcast and to get away with it virtually unchallenged.  And yet that is precisely what we got when the BBC’s Middle East correspondent Jeremy Bowen recently interviewed Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas. Hamas leader Meshaal warns of Israeli 'extremism' after elections, reads the baffling headline that accompanies Bowen’s interview.

Finally, the presidential race got interesting. The thought of Hillary Clinton vs Jeb Bush was too much of a rerun of the same old thing: big government liberal vs big government conservative arguing about how best to spend Americans’ money. And they both share a taste for military excursions – white boots marching in foreign lands. Well, now there’s a candidate officially in the race who stands for something completely different. Rand Paul’s libertarian crusade could be about the most exciting candidacy in my political lifetime. It won’t star the most exciting candidate. Senator Paul (Kentucky) wears the standard uniform of the college Republican: blue blazer, red tie, grey slacks. The voice could send you to sleep; the face is forgettable.

As the election season finally gets its boots on, office-seeking motor-mouths of every creed and colour would do well to remember the tale of William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States of America, who died on this day in 1841, exactly one month after taking office. The ‘pneumonia of the lower lobe of the right lung’ (plus complications) was said to be brought on by a cold, contracted on the day of his inauguration when Harrison gave a two-hour speech – at 8,500 words, the longest in American history – on a freezing wet day, rode to and from the ceremony on horseback (rather than in a carriage), and refused at any point to wear a hat, gloves, or even an overcoat.

Tonight Ed Miliband and David Cameron will be interviewed by Jeremy Paxman in two separate interviews, after Cameron declined to do a head-to-head interview with the Labour leader. Now, Mr S hears that the prospect of a Paxman grilling has been keeping Miliband up at night. Word reaches Steerpike that Miliband has hired the help of American public relations guru Michael Sheehan to prepare him for the interview. Sheehan - who has worked closely with Barack Obama - has been trying to help Miliband improve his public speaking ahead of tonight's event. This is not the first time Ed has tried to emulate Obama, he previously enlisted the help of David Axelrod, one of the president's most senior advisers, for his election campaign.

There was an interesting survey by Chatham House a few weeks back; asked which countries they had good feelings about, the British put the following as their top ten favourite. 1 Australia: 47% favourable 2 Canada: 44% 3  = USA and the Netherlands: 33% 5 Sweden: 28% 6 Norway: 26% 7 Ireland: 24% 8 Germany: 21% 9 Italy and Spain: 20% Their least liked were Russia, North Korea, Israel, Iran, Pakistan and Ukraine, which is not surprising as all are involved in conflict in some way and people are probably sick of hearing about them. Strangely, 1% of Britons feel ‘especially unfavourable’ towards Norway. Are they still bitter about Harald Hardrada’s invasion? Or possibly that commentator from the 1981 game still grates?