Spin, Whips and a tasteless hack

Us monoglot lot from Westminster in Cardiff to cover Tony Blair's speech to the Welsh assembly squealed with delighted to find Walkman-like translators on our seats.

Imagine our disappointment that the great helmsman's words were not available in Welsh.

Perhaps that explained the pained expressions on the faces of Plaid Cymru delegates.

But the Government's commitment to full multi-culturalism is unabated.

As the very Scots secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Dr John Reid fiddled with his headset, a colleague asked him, "Looking for the Gaelic, John?"

"No, Glaswegian" he growled back.

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Given the righteous fury of the press at Jo Moore's grotesque e-mail you would think a wicked, tasteless thought could never cross a journalist's mind.

Casting my mind back to 11 September it's a good thing then that I have no ability to put names to faces.

That day, you'll remember Tony Blair was about to get a mauling from the trade unions when he talked to them about public private partnerships.

In the circumstances he tore up the planned text and made a masterful speech about the unfolding tragedy that had the TUC on their feet applauding.

As we left the hall one of the hacks remarked "It's amazing how far Alastair Campbell will go to get him a standing ovation".

Now, if only I was better with faces...

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As Mr Blair arrives in the desert kingdom will he repeat these lines from his conference speech?

"Look for a moment at the regime. It is undemocratic. All other faiths, all other interpretations of Islam are ruthlessly suppressed. Those who practice their faith are imprisoned. Women are treated in a way almost too revolting to be credible; no legal rights, unable to go out of doors without a man."

Silly me. Of course not. He says Saudi Arabia is "a good and dependable friend to the civilised world".

But perhaps not entirely signed up to all of its values.

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The transcript of Hilary Armstrong's meeting with Labour rebel Paul Marsden left former whips gasping.

Not because it was too tough but because it was so inept.

The smart money is on Adam Ingram to get the job after the next reshuffle. Action pictures on the Ministry of Defence web site suggest he'll have a straightforward way of dealing with recalcitrant backbenchers.

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Perhaps the speaker now sees his role as protecting those in the press gallery as well as MPs.

One of the most boring - if necessary - questions I'm continually asked on air is "How damaging is this to the government, Mark?"

I amuse myself with thinking up (and of course not using) increasingly surreal measurements of governmental damage.

"About three and a half inches so far but that could increase by a couple of centimetres in coming days."

"Well if this government was a puppy it would have half an ear torn off but its tail would still be wagging."

But now the speaker has raised eyebrows by praising David Blunkett's measures on asylum seekers perhaps we could just cut straight to him to give marks out of 10.

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In a BBC News Online forum I'm asked "If the Northern Ireland peace process fails, will the government wage a war on terrorism there as well?"

I give a pat answer on the lines that it has been for the last 30 years.

But the apparently almost trite question has deceptive depths. Like some computer virus it has nagged away and cascaded a series of questions in my mind.

If the British military concluded they could not win a war against terror in Northern Ireland why is it different in the Middle East?

Do governments' tolerate an "acceptable" level of terrorism?

If the IRA had killed 6,000 or even 600 in one go would they have been hunted down and eliminated?

How do we find and destroy Bin Laden's arms dumps when we couldn't find the IRA's?

Why were the IRA's leaders not targeted and killed? Thank you, Sam in the UK, for some sleepless nights.

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The mystique of "The Lobby", that off camera but now on the record, briefing at Downing Street is such that it is credited with awesome powers of manipulation.

The comment pages have been full of righteous indignation about how Downing Street whipped up a war between themselves and the BBC to hide the Jo Moore story, on the grounds the Sun led with the alleged war the next day.

As it happens Downing Street did its best to play any argy bargy with the BBC down: the Sun was quite capable of declaring war on the BBC on its own, for its own reasons.

Funnily enough the very next day the lobby briefing was rather sniffy about certain newspapers "scaremongering" (the Downing Street word) about anthrax.

For some reason none of my bosses were keen on my suggestion that we run a story about "Downing Street war on tabloids".

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Paddy Ashdown, rather muddling his alternative belief systems, has talked of Zen Blair, who waits for the constellations to come together in the right configuration before acting.

I can reveal new converts to political quietism. The Zen Conservatives.

After David Blunkett's downgrading of dope, Conservative Central Office rang. They had a statement. They noted Mr Blunkett's announcement, and trumpeted that they could make no other comment because they had a review of all policy and such matters were likely to be included.

Surely the sound of one hand clapping.