Will 'hand-bagged' Blair return for more?

Tony Blair ran into trouble at the WI

By political correspondent Guto Hari

This might have been one of those occasions when he felt he could justify a lie, but if we believe the prime minister's press spokesman, Tony Blair did not even look at today's newspapers.

Why remind himself that he'd been "hand-bagged", "bombed", "heckled, jeered, booed" and "reduced to jelly" by the Women's Institute?

Some of his ministers must have enjoyed the headlines, but again, if we believe Alastair Campbell, none of them mentioned them in today's cabinet.

There was no escape for the spin doctor. He marched into a briefing room heaving with hungry correspondents, six of his support staff in tow, and a determined expression on his face. Before him were the men and women who'd written those hurtful headlines, and they had only just tasted blood.

Yet, the Sun's political editor has advised the prime minister to "come out fighting", so Alastair Campbell did it for him, reeling off examples of the government's achievements, blaming the press for demanding the briefings from him which they were now deploring.

He struggled not to insult the WI, struggled to insist they had asked for the speech they had got, struggled to maintain that there was no need to change the government's communication strategy, and struggled to insist that "an incident at Wembley stadium", would be long forgotten when voters would give their real verdict on Labour's performance.

So has anything changed? To admit so after spending 20 minutes pretending otherwise would have been impossible.

So would he happily address them again? A look of horror was swiftly stifled before a smile spread on the spin-doctor's face as he remembered the one good card he had to play.

For all their protestations, the WI it appears have already invited Tony Blair back. I doubt somehow he'll risk it.