It is easy to assume that nobody pays much attention any more to what Tony Blair has to say. That has been increasingly the case since last September's attempted coup forced the timetable for his departure from 10 Downing Street. Indeed the sense of the audience moving on has been with us since that moment, before the 2005 general election, when he volunteered that it would be his last.
Friends of the departing prime minister, like the British public at large, have also been bemused by an extended farewell tour more globally ambitious than might be expected even from an outgoing US president.
Yet even his sternest media critics might admit that Mr Blair, on form, is still a class act, a commanding figure whose capacity for empathy made him a winner three times over with his electorate. And he for one will have been unsurprised by the headlines generated by his speech accusing the media of raising public cynicism about politicians and politics to new heights. Mr Blair would be unsurprised, of course, because he knows the media likes talking about itself - but also, crucially, because he clearly believes he is saying what many others think but fear to articulate.
That Mr Blair found the courage to address this issue less than two weeks before leaving office in no way diminishes his right to a respectful hearing. Nor should issues validly raised - chief among them the fear that competition in the changed world of 21st century communications means a search for "impact" that prioritises scandal or controversy over ordinary news reporting, blurs the line between news and views, and mistakes or takes all human error as evidence only of the venal and conspiratorial - be lightly disregarded because of a natural feeling that any complaint is more than a bit rich coming from "New Labour".
Mr Blair the lawyer also did his cause no service in first bowing to the charge - as if this were the one that mattered - that his government initially devoted too much time "to courting, assuaging and persuading the media". As the BBC's respected political editor Nick Robinson observed: "While he did acknowledge the role of 'spin' in increasing cynicism about politics, he would have wrongfooted those who want to avoid selfexamination if he'd also reflected on his promise to be 'purer than pure' and of those missing weapons of mass destruction." Yet in likening the media "pack" to "a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits", Mr Blair may again have shown his uncanny instinct for the public mood. In this and in other matters he has provided focus for welcome debate and reflection.