Blair owns up to spin

Tony Blair today admitted for the first time that his government has been much too preoccupied with spin and presentation.

He told senior MPs that New Labour had gone too far in using its media manipulation techniques, honed during years in opposition, when it came into power.

The admission came as the Prime Minister experienced his first major public grilling at the hands of 35 chairmen of Commons select committees in a session expected to last two-and-a-half hours.

He appeared relaxed, removing his jacket as he faced his inquisitors who were grouped round him at a horseshoe-shaped table in the Betty Boothroyd Room of Portcullis House, the MPs' new office block.

The hearing, the first in what is meant to be a series, was televised live and attended by around 100 people, mainly journalists.

It was billed as putting Mr Blair on the rack by forcing him to defend himself before hostile Tories and Labour rebels - but most of the early questioning was gentlemanly and lacked the cut-and-thrust of Mr Blair's weekly sessions in the Commons.

Mr Blair's admission that his administration had relied too much on the spin techniques beloved of his key aides Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson came as he promised to try to find "new ways" of communicating with voters.

It followed similar warnings by Mr Mandelson and Mr Campbell as well as Cabinet ministers Robin Cook and Clare Short - but opened him up to the likely Tory charge that a promise to drop spin was simply itself a new form of spinning his government's message.

He told Labour's Tony Wright, chairman of the public administration committee: "I think when you were in opposition for as long as we were there is a tendency to believe that the announcement is the reality. In the first period in government there was a tendency to believe that same thing applied. It does not, in fact."

Mr Blair said that official announcements - beloved by New Labour and often preceded by leaks and accompanied by much fanfare - were in fact merely the " intention" to do something.

What was important was actually delivering improvements, he added.

In further questioning, Mr Blair made no apology for having what he called a "strong centre" to his administration - a move which has opened him up to running a presidential or even dictatorial style of government.

He said: "If you go back in politics, I think prime ministers fall into two categories - those that are considered to have a strong centre are accused of being dictatorial, and those that are not are seen as being weak. You pays your money you takes your choice.

"I make no apology for having a strong centre, though.

"I can't believe there is a single prime minister who hasn't wanted the prime minister's writ to run."

Mr Blair also defended the Government's reliance on special advisers - the politically-appointed ministerial aides whose role faced fierce criticism after details emerged of Jo Moore's notorious 11 September email asking colleagues to "bury" items of bad news.

He described the idea that policy is decided by special advisers as "absurd". He rejected a claim by Labour Party chairman Charles Clarke that the current total of 80 advisers was too many.