Tony Blair may end up a grumpy old man. He was certainly grumpy at his press conference yesterday. You could see him, half way through the ritual hour, looking thoroughly fed up. What were all these pesky questions? Who were all these irritating people? Whose idea was this anyway? (It was yours, Prime Minister.)

The plan had been for the PM to sell us ID cards. Mr Blair had even brought along Liam Byrne, the Minister for ID cards. Mr Byrne rushed over to a chair that was so peripheral that it was practically outside. Indeed, he was last seen being engulfed by a giant swag curtain. At no point did he speak.

Mr Blair gave a comedy PowerPoint presentation called “Identity Management”. It was so bad that it was good. There were lots of graphs that no one could read. Most featured mysterious bars of lavender (why?) My favourite heading was “The Public Are Concerned”. They would be if they ever saw this.

Mr Blair had broken out the pancake make-up for his “law and order” event. Apparently you cannot be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime unless you have a bit of slap. I guess the summer tan has faded. (Don’t worry, the winter break is not far away.) He began to get tetchy just after the hacks insisted on asking about a different kind of law and order: ie, Saddam Hussein and the death penalty.

Adam Boulton, Prime Minister of Sky News, was pretty grumpy himself. He asked the execution question and didn’t like it one little bit when Mr Blair answered by waxing lyrical about how amazing it had been that Iraq had managed to put on the trial.

“Do you think he should get the death penalty?” demanded Adam.

“As Margaret set out . . .” said Mr Blair.

Adam interrupted: “You are the Prime Minister! You’ve been Prime Minister for ten years. She’s been Foreign Secretary for five minutes. Do you think that . . .”

The Prime Minister’s eyes flashed cobalt blue. “Excuse me! I just said she set out the position for the Government and that is all I want to say on it. Our position on the death penalty is well known. We are opposed to it, as Margaret said. Obviously since we are opposed to the death penalty . . .”

Adam attacked again: “You oppose his execution!”

“Adam!” barked Mr Blair, possibly wondering why God had created this guy anyway. “Excuse me! That’s enough, thank you very much. I happen to want to express myself in my own way, if you don’t mind. What did you have for breakfast, then, this morning?” Mr Blair tried to reclaim the agenda. “Now! ID cards,” he said, gushing on about these magical cards, which will help us to get mortgages and shop online (as well as obliterate terrorism). “I suppose everyone here has a system of ID to get into the building where they work!” he mused. Yes, Prime Minister, we do.

Mr Blair sailed bumpily on. He refused to answer questions on the cash-for-honours investigation and Gordon Brown (his two most hated subjects). He kept asking how long “we” wanted to go on for.

It was inevitable that he would be asked again about Saddam. This time, Mr Blair just blurted it out: “We are against the death penalty, whether it is Saddam or anyone else.” He then looked nonplussed, for he doesn’t want that headline in Iraq. Indeed he looked even grumpier, if such a thing were possible.

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