A CHASE across several continents came to its conclusion yesterday morning. In a high, wood-panelled room filled with rows of chairs, Tony Blair finally tracked down the British press so that he could explain things to them — most of all so that he could explain the latest thinking on a long-term ceasefire in Lebanon.

He wanted to tell them about renewing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He wanted to share with them that overnight he had spoken to President Bush, and in the early morning to Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese Prime Minister. That it was agreed that any ceasefire, in his formulation, had “to involve the whole of the Government of Lebanon”. This is presumably so that Hezbollah can do any negotiating not as Hezbollah, but as part of the “whole of the Government of Lebanon”. Which was why, he said patiently, there was no point in simply demanding an immediate ceasefire. And so the chap from Five News then asked: “But why can’t you call for an immediate ceasefire?”

One of the most attractive aspects of these press conferences is that the international press also gets to ask questions. Or, in the case of the Middle Eastern press, to make speeches with question marks on the end. “You never achieved anything in the peace process . . .” an Arab newspaper journalist declaimed. More surreally, the chap from Iranian TV used the occasion to complain that the people in the region were going to be alienated when seeing that Israeli ordnance had been sent through Britain. In fact this was doubly surreal — first, of course, because Iran is directly supplying most of Hezbollah’s rockets, and secondly, because there wasn’t the slightest chance of Iranian TV clearing its schedules (between dramas featuring baby-sucking Jews and crowds chanting “Death to somebody-or-other”) — to transmit Mr Blair’s reply.

Not that the Iranian TV guy was the angriest person in the room. That seemed to be Channel 4’s Jon Snow, who first asked a question including a reference to Israel “laying waste to south Lebanon and south Beirut”, and later heckled to the effect that there were “outraged Muslims throughout the world”. Well, it’s a big world and there are many Muslims, so all we can say for sure is that Jon was speaking for outraged Jon Snows throughout the world.

What was clear was that no one in the room was prepared to be sidetracked by anything as arcane as the PM’s account of his contacts with Bush and Siniora. Nor were they interested in Mr Blair’s condemnation of the latest comments from the President of Iran about the need to eliminate Israel. They were far more concerned to remind him how everyone hated him. The former Ambassador to Moscow had called on him to go. Mark Malloch Brown, of the UN, had called for him not to be involved in the peace talks. What about the mutiny against his stance on the Lebanon? What about the “mood of despair” among Labour backbenchers?

The question that summed the morning up went something like this: “If your opinions are so moderate and sensible, how come everyone thinks they’re crap, whatever they are?”

There are only two ways of looking at his premiership now, according to the developing conventional wisdom. If he pretends that he’s still Prime Minister and tries to do things, then he’s delusional. If he doesn’t, then he’s a busted flush.

And part of the reason is this: the pack know his jokes, mimic his mannerisms and have his speech patterns imprinted on their psyches. He is no mystery any more, save that he’s still there when they have made it clear that he shouldn’t be, and that they want a new prime minister to play with.

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