A new age of Blair emerges at the touch of a button

THE YEAR is 2005 and after a second term as prime minister, Tony Blair's Bambi youthfulness is looking a touch frayed - the hair a little thinner, face fuller and skin more wrinkled, writes Steve Connor.

But this is no ordinary artist's impression of the ravages of time. The image of an ageing Mr Blair comes from a computerised database compiled by scientists at St Andrew's University. They believe it is the first entirely automated method of making a face grow old. David Perrett, a psychologist who helped develop the technique, said its great advantage over artists' impressions of the ageing process is that it can be used by untrained people: 'A person need not know how a face can change with age. You just need to press a button.'

The computer images rely on a database of about 600 people in two age categories: 20 to 30 and 50 to 60. It analyses features that change between the two groups and works out the difference, which can then be added to a picture to 'age' a person by a given number of years.

Duncan Rowland, a research assistant to Dr Perrett, said that after further refining of the process it should be possible to eliminate the bias and subjectivity inevitable in a picture enhanced by an artist. 'There is no artistic licence used in our method whereas 10 different artists could age a face 10 different ways.'

(Photographs omitted)