The Sketch: Communication, communication, communication...
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Your support makes all the difference.It was the first time that anyone in the capacity of the office of Prime Minister had submitted himself to questioning by a select committee. Tony Blair is going to do it twice a year. It's a new way of showing off. Or, as he puts it, a new way of communicating. A far stronger way of communicating.
It's "how we communicate in a different way".
The Prime Minister gave it all the passion, energy, commitment, modesty, humour, sincerity, firmness, fairness, politeness, idealism, pragmatism and anti-perspirant he could muster. He created the expert impression of a perfectly nice fellow who knows everything. A bit second-rate perhaps, but prime ministers usually are.
Three remarks in particular marked him down to beta-minus: "If you go to a really good school you're more likely to stay on to the sixth form."
"It's going to be a significant length of time before we squeeze out the last bit of sectarian feeling in Northern Ireland."
"There's no point in being coy about the security services: the work that they do is the work that they do."
It's a dumbing-down thing. Even James Callaghan wouldn't have talked like that.
Then there was the mortar between his policy bricks. "I really do believe. I totally understand the anxieties. I would agree with both criticisms. It is important to have good working relationships. I'll tell you what I think about it. We've got to get the balance right. It's terribly important to explain this properly. If I can say this honestly to you."
When a specific idea was suggested to him to invigorate parliamentary business – two half hours a week, for instance, for topical questions – he said he'd have to take advice on that. Which means he won't take advice on that.
He declined to set up an audit body to evaluate the health implications of any policy by saying: "There's always a danger in setting up a body that it will spew out all sorts of initiatives and directives."
Never was the single most obvious characteristic of this Government so succinctly expressed.
He was asked to what degree he accepted responsibility for politicians' low standing (on a par with journalists, it was claimed). None, he suggested. It was a collective responsibility, he said. All MPs. Froth. "It's about how we communicate. How we get a better debate."
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