This week in The Week in Westminster

Sheena Macdonald presents The Week in Westminster on Radio 4 at 11am on Saturday 10 June.

In a week when the Prime Minister tried and failed to win over the women of the WI, we ask if this a significant poilitcal moment or a quickly forgotten bit of fun.

Roger Berry, Labour backbencher, and Tory John Bercow disagree on whether Downing Street made a huge tactical error in putting Mr Blair in front of such a formidable audience.

Tony does not walk on water

Roger Berry, Labour MP

Then university elitism - following the chancellor's remarks about the Tyneside student who failed to get a place at Oxford - David Puttnam, a Labour peer, and the Tory spokesperson on education in the Lords, Emily Blatch, discuss whether there can ever be opportunity for all in higher education.

This week too, Europe has been on the poltical agenda.

William Hague spoke at the Welsh Conservative Conference about strengthening the British veto on EU decision making and at PMQs the prime minister was challenged by one of his own backbenchers to make a stronger commitment to joining the euro.

The former Europe minister, Douglas Henderson, and the euro-sceptic Tory Oliver Letwin say clear battle lines are now being drawn upfor the next election.

I decided long ago the Commons is a terrible taskmaster

Steven Norris on not wanting to be an MP again

Finally - is the party over? In a week when politicians have been trying to woo non-political audience, are people just sick of the political process and the parties which propagate it?

Former Conservative Mayoral candidate Steve Norris and Labour's Fiona Mactaggart say politicans have their work cut out to keep the public interest in their profession alive.

Mr Norris denies wanting to get back into the House of Commons saying "the Commons is too terrible a taskmaster".

Next week Mary Ann Sieghart of The Times presents the programme.

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The Week in Westminster was first broadcast 70 years ago.

Click here to listen to the 70th birthday special programme.

Initially a weekly broadcast given exclusively by female MPs about parliamentary business, The Week in Westminster was immediately popular with listeners but less so with some politicians who believed it wrong for parliamentary business to be discussed in public.

Such views prompted the BBC's first director general Lord Reith to defend the programme as "chiefly for the benefit of housewives ... shift workers, unemployed, invalids, etc".

In its time, the programme has had a range of presenters and producers - including Guy Burgess, the infamous spy who defected to Moscow.

Lloyd George's daughter Megan and Tony Blair's official spokesman Alastair Campbell have also been presenters over the years.