Blair faces continued pressure

Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political Correspondent, BBC News website

Under normal circumstances, Tony Blair might have been relieved not to have been facing an avalanche of questions over his reliance on the Tories to win his legacy education reforms.

Blair offered to review party funding issue

After all, he called his monthly press conference for the day after the big education vote in order to belt aside any questions over his leadership after apparently only winning thanks to Tory MPs' votes.

But relieved the prime minister clearly was not. And that was most obvious when he found the words "corruption" and "sleaze" aimed in his direction.

They came as he faced a barrage of questions, not over education reforms, but over the "cash for peerages" row that, in effect, saw him putting his hands up and declaring the buck stopped with him and things really did have to change.

In so far as that went, it was all very reasonable and, as he said himself, was an issue that applied across the political spectrum.

The suggestion being every party and government had had the same problems and it was time they all got together to solve them and, in the mean time, he was taking steps to tighten up the system.

Millions worth

And, as he rightly pointed out, he had already opened up the system to a far greater degree than ever before.

Schools reforms hardly raised their head

But the more detailed the questioning became, the more uncomfortable the prime minister appeared.

He admitted he had known about the millions worth of loans that had come as such a surprise to Labour treasurer Jack Dromey.

He confessed Mr Dromey should, of course, have been told about them.

But he also admitted that he had not informed the independent appointments commission that some of the individuals he had nominated for peerages had just a short time previously made large loans to his party.

The rules did not require it, he explained, so perhaps they should be changed.

Mud sticks

And some questions, such as how could party officials have missed the fact that millions of pounds were suddenly appearing in the accounts, he was unable to answer - other than to express his certainty that everything had been done by the book.

Major faced sleaze claims

And it was during these exchanges that the words "corruption" and "sleaze" were aimed at him.

They were just the sort of provocative questions the Tories had suffered towards the end of John Major's premiership and the prime minister knows just how damaging they can be.

As his own spin doctors knew when they were using similar words against the last Tory administration, mud sticks.

The prime minister clearly hopes he can resolve these questions before this mud has dried on his premiership.

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