The final edition included four souvenir supplements and a stark front cover that was mainly white with just the words ‘stop press’ in red. 

One of the supplements in particular, however, caught the attention of one eagle-eyed former comp. Fujifilm’s Mark Stephenson was suitably appreciative of the print-themed cartoon by Dave Brown that adorned the front of ‘The End’, featuring a Linotype machine (being operated by Margaret Thatcher) and a Marinoni printing press, but he did have issues with the depiction of Tony Blair holding a composing stick containing the word ‘END’, and with a spare ‘e’ in his hand.

“I thought, hang on a minute Tony, you don’t set type like that. It should be upside down and back-to-front,” Stephenson notes. 

There speaks a man who served his apprenticeship in letterpress and spent seven years setting type by hand. 

Happily, Stephenson did accept that a certain amount of artistic licence could be granted to the cartoonist, in the circumstances.