International

Blair seeks truce with media

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON JUNE 21. In a charm offensive intended to ease the growing tension between his Government and the media, the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on Thursday put on his softest

" velvet'' gloves and suggested that, for a change, ``maybe we should take a time out on each other's hysteria''.

Setting aside the confrontational tone that has marked the Government-media exchanges in recent weeks, Mr. Blair admitted that he might have made "lots of mistakes'' and the press was within its rights to "find out''. "You've got your job to do, I've got mine,'' he told journalists at the first of a series of U.S.-style televised press conferences he plans to hold to make himself more accessible to the media.

Even at the risk of appearing to have "blinked'' first in the Government's ongoing battle of attrition with the press, Mr. Blair went the extra mile to sue for peace. And the strategy appeared to have worked as some of his most bitter critics in what is essentially a Tory-dominated press emerged from Downing Street wreathed in smiles. Even The Daily Telegraph, which has been involved in some of the most brutal attacks on Downing Street in recent days, admitted that it was an "impressive performance''. And The Times, despite the sarcasm of its sketch writer, could not pretend not to have been impressed by what it described as a "Blair' unadorned, unplugged and unspun.''

It was clearly a fence-mending exercise, coming a day after a vicious media attack on the Prime Minister's wife, Cherie Blair, for her off-the-cuff remarks about Palestinian suicide bombers, and the Home Secretary, David Blunkett's strong denunciation of sections of the press who, he said, were "almost on the edge of insanity''.

A few days ago, the Labour Party chairman, Charles Clarke, had provoked a row by calling journalists "pious and hypocritical'' and accusing them of "demeaning'' and "diminishing'' politics by constantly attacking the Government.

Mr Blair's "disarming'' performance came barely hours after an opinion poll showed that a vast majority of voters did not "trust'' his Government.

Even as the media looked pleased that, even if for a day, they had brought the Prime Minister seem like eating out of their hands, the Opposition was not impressed.

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