By BBC News Online's Nyta Mann

Sooner or later all governments reach the same conclusion. Their problems are due not to government policy or the manner of its delivery but to the way the media stubbornly insist on reporting them.

If only there was some means of by-passing those interfering journalists and letting The People know how much good is being done for them.

John Major complained about it, as did Margaret (now Lady) Thatcher before him. Tony Blair's government is no different. "Our message is not being allowed to get across" is a protest many a spin-doctor has made to - and about - many a political journalist.

It has surfaced again recently as New Labour weathers a buffeting in the press over the health service, Wales, Peter Kilfoyle, the Millennium Dome and assorted other troubles of late.

But at last the internet will enable the government to get its story across unsullied by external interpretation. That, at any rate, is the theory.

Downing Street's proud presentation of its revamped website highlighted the online availability of all those full-length speeches, policy documents and consultation papers that ordinary citizens had been waiting to read.

Downloading them direct from the Number 10 site would not only be of great interest to the voting, surfing public, the prime minister's official spokesman Alastair Campbell pointed out. "It's also to help journalists do their job better," he added, sending a nervous titter round the room.

And there's more. A special "Magazine" section includes interviews with members of the government. Presumably not the kind in which a minister rampages off-message, but more along the lines of the classic cross-examination of Clement Atlee at the start of the 1951 election campaign: "Prime minister, is there anything you would like to say to the nation?" (After some consideration came the answer: "No.")

A click of the mouse on "Factfiles" takes you to "in-depth analysis of specific government policies" - analysed by, er, the government. Go to "Delivering" to be told "what the government has done to improve the lives of different groups of people". Told by, yes, the government.

New Labour soundbites - "For the many not the few", "Fairness and opportunity", "A decent society" - emblazon many of the pages. It surely won't be long before cynics - close to journalists in the spindoctors' league-table of pests to be professionally endured - rechristen it Cyber-Pravda.

US President Bill Clinton delivers a weekly radio address to the American public. Mr Blair's proposed regular webcasts to the nation allow him to follow suit while avoiding direct comparison - though that will not prevent renewed "President Blair" jibes.

This direct-to-the-voters approach will not put political correspondents in fear for their livelihoods. The job of a journalist is not simply to convey information - and the website has plenty of that - but also to sort propaganda from fact, put it in context and test it through rigorous examination.

As Mr Blair's spokesman didn't quite say, that also helps governments to do their job better.