There has been lots of talk over the past few weeks of reverting to the old style hard-back British passports. Everything I have read tells me that we can look forward to the return of the traditional blue passport. I have my old passport in front of me at the minute. It's definitely not blue, it's black. I've tried looking at it in different lights, turned it over and over, wondered if maybe it's a very dark blue, or if time has just faded it, but always come back to deciding no, it's not blue, it's black. I have never had a blue one.

Does anyone have an explanation? Possibly, because I am originally from Northern Ireland and that is where it was issued, the colour there was different from mainland UK, but I can't find anything online to confirm this. Anybody know the answer?