Best of all would be if the Prime Minister adopted a tone which was more thinking aloud than pat answers and that the audience encouraged this.. Moreover, the more the Government connects with ordinary people, the better it will govern. it is extraordinary behaviour when you consider their huge majority … why is Labour so worried about facing Parliament?”I see the matter differently. Nothing in the notion of regular question and answer sessions with the public detracts one jot from the power of Parliament. During Lady Thatcher’s last election as Prime Minister, the worst discomfort she suffered came from an exchange with a radio listener during a phone- in on the subject of the sinking of the Belgrano during the Falklands war.The Tory reaction to Mr Blair’s initiative is incomprehension.

The Conservatives can only conceive the exercise of democracy as taking place in the House of Commons where the party whips control MPs’ votes. Thus Sir Archibald Hamilton, chairman of the 1922 committee of Conservative MPs, comments with heavy sarcasm that “it seems to have escaped Mr Blair’s notice that in the British democracy he is supposed to be held to account by elected MPs … At press conferences, political journalists rarely put questions that the general public would ask; these are considered naive or boring because the answer is already known.Instead they are much more interested to discover, to take a recent example, whether the Cabinet Secretary did in fact successfully veto Mr Blair’s plans to appoint the person who was his chief of staff in opposition as his private secretary in Downing Street – somebody who happens to be the brother of a former aide to Lady Thatcher. And such questions tend to draw considered replies; their very artlessness calls for a straightforward response.Political journalists, on the other hand, are more interested in the political process than in policy. Had they been interested in the subject- matter of government, then they would have become specialist writers and concentrated on health, or education or economics or defence or whatever On the contrary, their speciality is politics itself. Questions from the public are generally direct and drawn from personal knowledge (in the case of crime, say, living in a rough part of town). The formula should be to bring together an audience that is representative of the country as a whole plus a few experts.

In addition a neutral chairman or chairwoman should make sure that the Prime Minister does not stray into party point scoring and should select the questioners.Undoubtedly ordinary people do ask politicians better questions, when they get the chance, than do journalists at a press conference or members of Parliament at Question Time. During 90 minutes this group of people will have to act as a proxy for the entire nation in putting its questions; it thus has to be representative by gender, age, race, education, occupation, income etc.There may be a temptation to invite only people having a direct experience of the chosen subject That would be a distortion. Nonetheless, a number of additional safeguards are required if the occasions are to realise their full potential.It will be important to learn how the audience is selected and what sort of people it comprises. There must not be any suspicion that somehow the Prime Minister has arranged an easy interrogation. It makes the exchanges more evenly balanced than they might at first appear. Mr Blair will be well briefed, but the camera’s cruel gaze can reveal any unease, bluff, or insincerity on his part. The event can become a valuable part of the democratic procedures of the nation.