Election '97: Pastries, punks and pep talks ... on the road with Tony, John and Paddy: Steve Boggan with Tony Blair

Once, when caught misbehaving at school, I was given the choice of serving one hour's detention or writing an essay about the inside of a ping-pong ball. It wasn't obvious then, but writing about the inside of the ball was good practice for covering Tony Blair's election campaign from the rarefied confines of one of his battle buses.

After two weeks, and thousands of miles on the road, up the tracks and in the air, the 50 or so press corps - whose employers have each paid pounds 7,500 for a ticket - knows no more about the Labour leader than it did at the start. Except, perhaps, that his university reputation for acting and learning his lines is well-deserved.

There are three buses bearing the legends "Leading Britain", "Into the future" and "With Tony Blair". They are interchangeable, although, as the Labour leader pointed out (borrowing from a columnist), the drivers of "Into the future" and "With Tony Blair" are under orders not to allow "Wall's Sausages" vans to come between them.

Nerves are fraying, not least because of the mostly vacuous nature of the visits being undertaken by Mr Blair. Since he began his campaign, there have been largely stage-managed question-and-answer sessions in Derby, Kidsgrove and Basildon. There have been school visits in Redditch, walkabouts in Exeter, Northampton and Stirling, and university and factory visits in Warwick and Croydon.

Most of these are put on for the benefit of the local media. Local journalists are granted interviews with Mr Blair, while the national press are kept well back. Questions shouted desperately at him by national hacks are greeted with a blank smile.

Again and again, Labour's Big Ideas about reduced class sizes for five- , six- and seven-year-olds, windfall taxes and shorter NHS waiting lists are trotted out - for soundbite consumption only.

During Q&As, Mr Blair often takes in his breath, stands back, utters the words "You know..." and launches into what looks like an impromptu diversion. In fact, these moments of improvisation are often seen more than once. Nevertheless, members of the audience, seeing them for the first time, say they are impressed by his off-the-cuff messages and the sincerity they convey.

Journalists stand in fenced pens during walkabouts, are often excluded from parts of visits and are kept well away from the Labour leader. So tight is the rein on which reporters are kept that on Wednesday the Press Association correspondent was asked to take off her brown coat during a photo opportunity because it was deemed to be a depressing colour on a sunny day.

There is an upside, but even that benefits Mr Blair. The organisation - first-class briefings, facilities for sending words and pictures, even refreshments to keep the mood upbeat - all help to keep the Blair message in our papers and on our screens.

The problem is that, with Labour playing safe, behaving more like government than opposition, interest in that message is waning fast.