The Sketch: Prime Minister dances around the answers with an elegant side-step

John "Black Pot" Prescott dismissed some criticism or other by saying it relied on information from the British press. An institution, he said, "which was very much discredited". Only 20 per cent of people believed what they read in it, he went on, "which was over double that in other EU countries" (some confusion there but let's press on).

What a slur on my colleagues. Retribution was instant. A cat jumped out of his mouth and spat at him. It was brindled, since you ask, and played a nose flute.

Tony Blair followed his deputy's example later on – perhaps it's all being co-ordinated in some new communications drive.

Paul Tyler had asked in his marvellously sneering voice whether the Prime Minister agreed with his own party official in Sedgefield. Labour had been accused by this admirable fellow of stifling dissent and debate, and of becoming a centralised mail-order firm. This had been widely reported in the press so the Prime Minister was able to respond: "I don't believe he said that at all."

That's quite good, isn't it? Very different, certainly, from: "He didn't say that at all."

It's one of the semantic similarities we find between Mr Blair and Mr Byers. It's hard to know who taught what to whom. A minute and seemingly innocent difference in phrasing allows plenty of slithering and wriggling room later on. "If my remarks gave the impression I was telling the truth, that is something obviously that I regret," as it might be paraphrased.

To any question, hostile or friendly, they both do a sort of reversing waltz step. One step backwards and then one to the side, feet together and ... pause on a prepared position. They issue the half-dozen scripted sentences that have been stress tested in many previous exchanges. "Investment we put in and they take out. Crime doubled under the Conservatives. They simply want to exploit a serious issue."

The effect is one of sterility, and one of the larger causes of voter apathy. The only interest is in whether banality outweighs piety, though banality and piety, uniquely, outweighed each other in Mr Blair's solution to the Pakistan/India conflict – "Pakistan must stop supporting terrorism and India must offer a proper system of dialogue."

Given the chance to say something interesting – about schools that teach Creationism, for instance – he backs away and just keeps backing.

Iain Duncan Smith (yes, you do remember him, you do, he's the caring one, the inner-city sink estate champion of the underclass one) asked an excellent question. He proposed that the Government had undermined the authority of headteachers and said that was one of the reasons why school children were gobbling a third more narcotics and assaults had increased fivefold.

Mr Blair went straight to the prepared position. "What a pathetic attempt to exploit what is a serious issue!" he cried. Oh, and crime had doubled under the Tories. "They simply want to exploit it!"

It's hard to know what the difference is between "exploitation" and "an eye-catching initiative with which I can be personally associated." But if we look at the language carefully enough we'll find that he, like Mr Byers, is not to blame for anything.

Simoncarr75@hotmail.com