In a way, you can't blame Ashley Bloomfield, and yet you can. 

He's quit. Why wouldn’t he? What a thankless task. But why do you quit when the job isn't over? The pandemic, as he has told us many a time, is far from finished. He's walking out with an unfinished job, Anthony Fauci hasn't quit. 

Has he done a good job? I'm not sure how much of what he did was him versus what the government made him do. How much of a puppet was he for an inexperienced government that clung to the public service for dear life because they couldn't make a decision for themselves? 

What I do know is we made him a bigger deal than he should have been. Saint Ashley came about because too many got sucked in by his calm demeanour and those mad days when we literally got freaked out by the fear-mongering, the teddies in the window, the team of 5 million bollocks and the "be kind" mantra. 

The fact t-shirts were made with Bloomfield on them, his invites to boxes at the football and charity games of sport that were only covered by the media because he was playing should forever be a reminder of how we make any old fool a celebrity. It was shockingly small town. 

What I will never know, because he won't tell us, is does he really believe he did a great job? Or just a great job with the limitations we had? The health service, of which he is in charge, is a mess. Is that because of him or is it systemic? 

What I also know is he got hopelessly politicised. He sounded more Labour than Labour some days. He rarely said sorry despite the myriad of cock ups. He promised bigger than he delivered and denied a lot of stuff, like PPE issues, vaccine issues and gold-standard issues that were never anywhere near what he was suggesting they were. 

He was unrelentingly polite. He only lost his cool once with me and I am a pain in the arse at times. He turned up, that’s leadership and a lesson for others who don’t. 

He had the Jacinda Ardern style of not really answering questions. And although I don’t know, but I can guess, he never really wanted any of this. The bureaucrats are faceless. Bloomfield is a household name from a group of people you normally couldn’t even begin to name. 

So, the Bloomfield years are coming to a close. I'm not surprised. His performance on this show this week, with hindsight, reeked of tiredness. 

Many a time on the phone off-air he sounded desperate. But ultimately good to get out when you think it's right, as opposed to them dragging you out kicking and screaming.