Despite stickiness and scratchiness, PM gets down to nitty gritty of saying nothing

Fed up with the media's obsession with trivial matters such as spin, sleaze and manipulation, the prime minister decided to appeal over our heads. Yesterday he held a conference meant to speak directly to the British people, through the medium of television, about the issues that really matter: health, crime, transport and education.

Of course he couldn't invite actual, normal, living British people because they would ask questions about health, crime, transport and education, and as we know from the last election, that would be embarrassing. They'd want to know why they couldn't have operations or why their trains were late.

So he invited the media instead. Being obsessed by trivia, we could be more or less guaranteed to ask questions about spin, sleaze and manipulation. Mr Blair could then accuse us of having no interest in issues which matter to real people, such as health, crime, transport, etc.

At the same time he wouldn't actually need to talk about any of these topics. It was a perfect win-win situation. The fact that it made one of the dreariest press events since Mr Attlee used to gather the press round to tell them that he had nothing to tell them was irrelevant. It was a triumph.

I watched on television. This was so I could experience the event like millions - well, dozens - of my fellow countrymen. In modern politics, being there is no substitute for watching it on television. And apparently it was vilely, steamingly, hideously hot inside the state dining room at No 10.

Also I wasn't allowed in. The space was needed for foreign reporters who, it was hoped, would ask compli cated questions about sisal imports. The prime minister could then grin sheepishly and say that he'd get back to them on that.

(As it happened, they didn't. By contrast, one American asked why he should have to pay his UK taxes to support minor royals in luxury. Mr Blair looked panic-stricken, saying, "I'm going to beat a diplomatic silence on that one," leaving us with the question, "how on earth do you beat a silence?")

The prime minister was asked a series of questions about spin. This enabled him to say, several times, that the media had a job to do, and so did he. Indeed, he implied, quite correctly, that his job was more important. It was, he said several times, the subject of public services that got him up in the morning.

Unlike the rest of us, who suffer alarm clocks, noisy children and dustbinmen. If he gets the NHS right, will he have a lie-in every day?

Mr Blair hates confrontation, which is why Gordon Brown gets away with so much. You could see him trying to win over his audience, in spite of the "scratchiness" which "arises from time to time".

There were lots of "y'know"s and "huh"s and "ah dunno"s. But now and again the scratchiness reappeared. At one point he was asked if he was trying to get round the press.

"I don't think ah'm trying to get round you, ah got you here in this room, for God's sake - ah mean, yer know..."

Or when someone asked why the British were supplying arms to both sides in the Kashmir crisis: "Because, the idea that we should shut down our defence industry in those circumstances, I find absolutely bizarre!"

Scratchiness alert! Someone left, and he said that clearly he would be staying there longer than "you guys".

"The TV audience has already gone," someone said, and I fear it may be true. It used to be said that if you wanted to keep a secret, you should make a speech to the Commons. Now the best method may be to hold a televised press conference.