Blair's trial by text

One is a chart-topping, 'bootylicious' young pop queen. The other is a 51-year-old politician whose r'n'b tastes lean more towards the Rolling Stones and Lynyrd Skynyrd than Destiny's Child or Jay-Z.

So perhaps it's no surprise that the 'text generation' seems more curious about Beyonce Knowles than Tony Blair.

Almost 7,000 questions were sent via text for Mr Blair to answer during a halfhour online chat at 10 Downing Street yesterday. He answered 30 and promised the other 6,970 would all receive a reply, adding: 'Someone's going to be busy.'

Perhaps the Prime Minister should be grateful he is merely leader of the world's fourth-largest economy, and not the lead singer of a best-selling girl band. After all, a similar session with Beyonce last year attracted 2million texts.

Mr Blair, a self-confessed technophobe, did not risk too much wear and tear on his fingers and thumbs. He delivered his answers orally, for typists to frantically transcribe and relay to mobile phones across the UK. He admitted: 'My texting talents are poor - they are undeveloped. My children are texters. My daughter took me through it the other night.'

Asked which person, alive or dead, he would most like to meet, Mr Blair - who was trying to keep his answers short - said: 'Probably the person I'm meeting tomorrow morning - Nelson Mandela.' Capital Radio DJ Margherita Taylor, who picked and posed the questions, said Iraq was the most popular subject, ahead of law and order and pensions.

Several relatives of Black Watch soldiers texted the Prime Minister, who again promised that the troops would be home by Christmas.

There were also more light-hearted moments, including a query on the proposed smoking ban and Mr Blair's admission about when he last lit up.

He said: 'I was a smoker for about six or seven years before I quit. It was part of the marriage deal. My last cigarette was a quarter of an hour before I got married.'