While some commentators felt the foreign secretary allowed the worst side of his personality to come through during the Kosovo conflict, on the whole he appears to have had a good war and emerged a serious statesman.
Although still damaged by revelations about his affair with his secretary and now wife, Gaynor Regan, at the start of his time in office, he has succeeded in putting it behind him.
But he still faces potential problems over his stated aim of bringing an "ethical dimension" to foreign policy, as the East Timor crisis illustrated.