Today in the old calendar of the Roman Empire is the Ides of March. It is a fateful day. In Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar it is the day when the emperor was assassinated by the Roman noblemen, Cassius, Brutus and the rest of the gang.

Caesar was, of course, a hero of ancient Rome. He had extended the empire and conquered many nations, including Britain which he first attacked in 55BC - as every schoolchild used to know in the days when history in schools did not feature only Hitler, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and John Lennon.

So what has the murder of Julius Caesar to do with us? Much. Mark Antony spoke eloquently at Caesar's funeral: "Caesar was an honourable man. But Caesar was ambitious". Antony's word "ambitious" was a euphemism. His hearers understood very well that Antony meant Caesar aspired to become dictator of Rome, to subvert the due process of state government, to bypass the senate and, in effect, establish a totalitarian regime with himself at the head.

And so it is today on the Ides of March. Our very own Mr Blair is like Caesar in that he has only contempt for our ancient traditions and despises our hard won democracy. For as long as he has been in office, Blair has sidelined Parliament whenever he could. He has even cut down the occasions when he is required to put in an appearance in the House of Commons from twice a week to once. And last week he got all upset when Parliament would not rubber stamp his dictatorial powers to detain people without trial.

Look, I am a Yorkshire lad who grew up among the smokestacks of old Leeds. I lived and breathed that smoke and the working class Old Labour culture of the post war years. My dad worked at the power station and he was in the Electrical Trades Union when that union was a force in radical politics. My dad's mates used to come round two or three nights a week and argue about politics and the word I recall most from those days is "democracy". Those Old Labour and trades union men fought for democracy - for a say in what went on in every aspect of their working lives.

My dad and his mates saw the Tories as their enemies. God only knows what they would say now if they were to come back from the dead and see the state we're in - for it's the Labour Government now which erodes democratic freedom more severely than the old Tories ever did. Even in wartime Churchill consulted Parliament more often than Blair does in a time of peace.

No wonder Old Labour stalwarts in the North-East are fed up with Tony and his gang. He hates all our ancient and well-founded traditions and institutions. His Government has debased the judiciary and the universities and even behaved insubordinately towards the Queen.

I would not support a gang of disillusioned and malcontent MPs in any attempt to bump off our Tony today - not even if they asked the IRA to do the job for them. But just suppose it were to happen. One thing is for sure: a present day Mark Antony, giving the funeral oration, would certainly be right to say that Blair was ambitious. But there is no way he could add the words "honourable man".

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.