He answered every question in detail. But sometimes he'd say "I'll come back to that" and I'd wonder what he was hiding.

But then 17 questions later a journo would ask something related, and Blair would remember the earlier question, answer them both, draw the connections, and ask both journalists if they had follow-up questions.

He wasn't hiding, he was waiting until both questions came up.

Questions came up about an embarrassing internal party argument. He didn't ignore it or shift blame, he just stood there and answered, then asked if that cleared things up, and invited follow-up questions.

One journo asked a 4-part question, and he answered all 4 parts in such detail it took perhaps 8 or 10 minutes to get through it.

He seemed (as far as I could tell) to know every bit of UK law, plus most Canadian law it related to, and the names and offices of every official.

He switched into French for French journalists, and after he'd answered, he translated the question and answer into English for the rest of us.

It went on for maybe 2 hours. It only stopped when the media had nothing left to ask. It was incredibly detailed and in-depth.

When I got home I thought: surely that will be on TV, it was extraordinary. But it wasn't on TV. No mention. When I next saw the client I'd been there with, they said "oh, it was normal, all PMs do it".

I'm sorry, but I can't imagine any current minister doing anything like it.

I'm not claiming Blair was unique, and my then-clients indicated he wasn't. This was what was expected from a PM: deep knowledge, incredible detail, facing everything head on. Blair, Major, Thatcher had all done it.

I guess we get the govt we vote for. And we repeatedly vote for lightweights.

Dunno why this just popped into my head.