Andrew Grice: Labour aims to attack hostile papers and rebuild bridges with the rest

Tony Blair has always been good at turning problems to his advantage. Confident that the "Cheriegate" affair has peaked, he intends to use it to define Downing Street's relationship with the media.

Yesterday the Government and the Labour Party launched a campaign to expose hostile newspapers, notably the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror.

They will frequently draw attention to the "agenda" of these two newspapers while trying to rebuild bridges with the rest of the media, which feels bruised after being misled over Cherie Blair's links with the convicted fraudster Peter Foster.

Despite the Mail group's role in exposing the affair, Downing Street insiders believe the most significant change in the media since last year's general election has been the unremitting hostility of the Mirror. "The Mail and the Mirror are now interchangeable; they hate New Labour in general and the Blairs in particular, " one Number 10 insider said last night.

The Blair machine is getting personal by attacking the papers' editors. The Labour MP Clive Soley won strong support when he attacked the Mail editor, Paul Dacre, at yesterday's meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party and repeated his charge in the Commons chamber.

Piers Morgan, editor of the Mirror, is a more difficult target because of the paper's historic support for Labour. Mr Morgan is convinced Mrs Blair tried to get him sacked; her version of events is that she urged a senior Mirror executive to "get him under control".

Some important lessons should be pulled out of the wreckage left by the past fortnight. The much-fabled Number 10 media operation forgot the lessons of previous media frenzies, such as those that cost Peter Mandelson and Stephen Byers their cabinet jobs. The Government should say little or nothing until it establishes all the facts from the primary source, and should never rely on second-hand accounts.

Otherwise, it will be on the defensive, because correcting inaccurate statements will be seen as an admission of lying. There is no substitute for being more open and honest from the start, rather than being forced reluctantly to tell the truth.

Changes in the government machine are also needed. Mrs Blair surely needs her own press spokesman, as Hillary Clinton enjoyed at the White House. Of course, the Mail would go ballistic; it always does.

But the Government's response to what should have been a minor problem rather than a full-blown crisis was not helped by the Prime Minister's spokesmen issuing statements on Mrs Blair's behalf but then declining to answer follow-up questions on the grounds they were not her spokesmen.

Godric Smith and Tom Kelly, the civil servants who took over the twice-daily briefings for Westminster journalists from Alastair Campbell, the director of communications, last year, have been in an impossible position in the past two weeks.

Like Mr Campbell, they did not know the facts because Mrs Blair did not tell them of Mr Foster's involvement in buying the flats.

Although the Downing Street machine rallied strongly round the Blairs yesterday, some officials understandably feel bruised. They cannot be expected to go into the lion's den on behalf of the Blairs without any protective armour.

Relations between Number 10 and the media have been damaged, but not irreparably. Mr Smith and Mr Kelly still have some credit in the bank because they have worked hard to avoid misleading the Lobby hacks. The "Cheriegate" affair leaves a nasty taste, but it will fade.

The other lesson is that Mr Blair should appoint an independent watchdog to oversee the ministerial code of conduct. If MPs have a watchdog, why not ministers?

The Prime Minister, who is in charge of policing the code, has toyed with the idea of an independent regulator from time to time, but should reflect on this week's headlines saying that he had cleared himself of any breach of the code. Now would be a good time to bite the bullet.