THE statue has been completed and the glorious leader sits inside two tons of marble, staring out in that alarming way we all remember.

The National Portrait Gallery says it looks "too domineering" and might scare the pants off young visitors. Tate Modern might re-consider if an ear were lopped off and stripes were applied. In the end, Dave Dee Shifts Things, the removal firm of York, buys the unwanted effigy, gives the former premier an Elvis hair-style and plonks the monumental figurine on the pavement in the rain, hoping to attract the curiosity of a kindly passer-by.

But sadly, no one shows interest in this too-solid representation of Tony Blair.

If you haven't heard the story about the Blair statue no one wants, that's because it hasn't happened yet. Such an unkind fate has, however, befallen an earlier prime minister. A larger-than-life marble statue of Margaret Thatcher has been rejected by the National Portrait Gallery and other British exhibitors. It may now find a home at Lake Havasu City, the enterprising resort in Arizona, USA, which bought the old London Bridge in 1969.

The mammoth likeness, which cost £50,000, has been languishing unwanted in sculptor Neil Simmons' studio.

To those of us who occasionally wake with a shudder in the night at the spectral memory of Margaret Thatcher, this story imparts the pleasant warmth of a small retribution. And yet the demons/heroines of one generation are dust to those next in the queue. The other day, my 13-year-old son asked me about Mrs Thatcher - who she was, why some people hated her so. She was so far in the past as to seem a curiosity, as if at a similar age I'd asked my father about Churchill.

My statue-switching scenario is more than a playful fancy, for the parallels between Thatcher and Blair have always existed, like railway lines standing a distance apart but running in the same general direction.

So here's the theory. Mrs Thatcher was the great modern asset of the Conservative Party, the unassailable leader with her finger on the British pulse (look, I know it's hard to swallow but it is only a theory); and then she became a blue blight and a liability. Everything about her that had been a positive switched to being a negative.

So if we follow this thesis, it is possible that Tony Blair - still riding high in this week's opinion polls - could eventually fall. Like Thatcher before him, he could become a hindrance. What had seemed fresh, attractive and vigorous could become stale, tarnished and hectoring.

Well, that's my hypothesis; but anything could happen, as is the way with politics. Just look at the so-called Tory revival, summoned up after Iain Duncan Smith dented Tony Blair at Question Time. But it is true that the Tory leader, shaking off his cloak of anonymity, spoke passing sense about New Labour's potty and inadequate proposals to modernise the House of Lords.

Talk of a true turn-around is premature, but at least the Conservative Party has climbed out of its coffin and shaken off the dirt (as well as discarding statuesque horrors from its past).

I'M enjoying the Morse re-runs on ITV1, which is a little sad, but there you have it. Last Friday it was the turn of The Silent World Of Nicholas Quinn, a mystery cleverly built round deafness. After one of the too-frequent ad breaks, a short scene showed a lip-reading class as it might sound to the hard of hearing. The effect was rather spoilt by the continuity announcer butting in with: "Sorry, folks, we seem to be having trouble with the sound."

All of which turned this particular moment into The Unexpectedly Noisy World Of Nicholas Quinn.

Updated: 10:54 Thursday, January 24, 2002