The Prime Minister was feeling in fine fettle after his fortnight off. The spring sunshine sprinkled warmly through the bedroom curtains, the Today programme was playing on the bedside table, the children were playing nicely downstairs, and the new baby was playing nicely all over the country. Prime Minister's Questions would be an opportunity for a bit of new father banter and some lively pointing and grinning, and before that there was a bit of fun out in the suburbs, with a speech to the National Federation of Women's Institutes, at Wembley Arena.

A Millbank flunky will have shown up early in the morning to run through the speech. They will have exchanged quips about jam-making and cake recipes and nudie calendars, and Tony will have joked about the things he has to do for his country.

The flunky will have reminded him that the speech was a run through of election pledges fulfilled, some platitudes about a changing world, and plenty of condescending guff about the olden days. "Super, smashing, great," Tony will have said. "And is there plenty about me being a new father and my mother doing meals on wheels?"

"Oodles of it, sir. The old dears will be weeping into their Thermos flasks. We've got a great line for you about how your father thinks it's odd that you go to church in jeans instead of a suit and tie, which will bring out their mothering instincts, and then you'll remind them of the time they did that saucy calendar, and say, 'I may be a casual dresser, but at least I'm dressed'. That'll kill 'em, sir, you'll have them for breakfast".

Blair casts himself as EU president candidate

Speaking on French TV, Tony Blair sang the praises of the EU and sketched his agenda for its future, all in fluent French

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It was not the old ladies, however, who were on the menu. By 10.30am, 10,000 of them were gathered in the arena, staring up at the Prime Minister on the podium. For all their silver hair they did not much resemble wolves, nor Mr Blair a lamb. They sang Jerusalem, by way of grace before the feed, and though he stumbled over some of the words early on, Mr Blair was in full flow in time to ask for his chariot of fire. It did not come soon enough.

An old lady from Shropshire does not slog half way across the country on a coach without a loo to be told that we all love film adaptations of Jane Austen and thanks to Labour there will be more of them. That would be why she shouted, "Rubbish!" You can't expect people to be quiet when you're patronising them just because they like making jam.

Mr Blair said that he and Gordon Brown were unashamed supporters of excellence. The girls shuffled in their seats. Some of them started shouting. He tried to tell them that he had had to make tough decisions. Frail hands groped for something heavy to throw. He wittered on about how he was working hard on the NHS, helping this and helping that. He told these women, who remember a world when children came home for lunch on Sundays and who do not think a weekly e-mail is a substitute, that he wanted to get everyone online.

They slow-clapped, they booed, a contingent from the West Midlands started waving goodbye. The Prime Minister burst blood vessels trying to smile as he sneered,"Well, I'm glad we're having a good debate" - the kind of tactic he usually reserves for baying Tory backbenchers.

Later, at PMQs, Charles Kennedy remarked that Mr Blair was probably glad to be back in the safety of the chamber. Glad to be back? He was glad just to have got out alive.

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