I SHOULD be eternally grateful, dear reader, if you could do me a favour during the forthcoming General Election campaign.

Please ask Tony Blair some questions for me?

Hacks here in Parliament's press gallery are growing concerned that they won't get a chance to lay a glove on the Prime Minister once the contest is properly underway.

The reason? Labour - under the watchful gaze of spin supremo Alastair Campbell - has declared its intention to scrap the traditional morning press conference, after which politicians and journalists are supposed to set off together on the "battlebus".

Mr Blair will switch tactics and pop up without warning all around the country and in TV studios, eluding the members of a Westminster village which, he believes, are hopelessly anti-Labour.

This has been called his "masochism strategy". The PM utilised it in the run-up to the Iraq war - and now he's signed up for another dose of pain.

The idea is simple - Mr Blair goes head to head with an often hostile group of "real" voters in the full glare of the television cameras, with members of the public sending in questions by email and text message.

By talking with the great British public, the Prime Minister can prevent having the media decide what voters hear from politicians. It also heads off accusations of spin and "control freakery".

We got the first taste last week, when Mr Blair - during an entire day in the company of Channel 5 - ran into Maria Hutchings, the woman angry about the education of her autistic son.

At first, it looked disastrous for Labour, as a furious Mrs Hutchings marched towards Mr Blair's desk shouting 'That's rubbish, Tony!'

It had echoes of his confrontation with Sharron Storer, the Birmingham woman who harangued him over the state of her local hospital in the 2001 election campaign.

But harmony was quickly restored after the Prime Minister offered to talk to her off-camera. And, sure enough, Mrs Hutchings later declared herself to be impressed that he had listened.

It looks like madness to provide visible proof of just how angry many voters are. Many newspapers branded the exercise a PR stunt which backfired - the PM looking embattled.

But Labour aides believe that allowing Mr Blair to go face-to-face with voters means hecklers no longer become a story - and the real issues take prominence.

They also know their man, after eight years in office, is in for a kicking at some point. Perhaps if the voters get it out of their system now, they won't do it in the polling booths on May 5.

Secondly, they know that Mr Blair - alone among the big political beasts - has the charisma and quick-wittedness to carry off a performance under pressure on the TV couch.

It was also notable that Mrs Hutchings didn't shout 'That's rubbish, Mr Blair!', or 'That's rubbish, Prime Minister!' or even 'That's rubbish, you halfwit!'.

No, she said 'That's rubbish, Tony!', as if she enjoyed a personal relationship, however fraught.

So will Mr Blair get easier questions by offering himself up as the voters' verbal punchbag?

Another Channel 5 viewer, Neil Copperdale, asked: "Bearing in mind that tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children have died as a result of the invasion of Iraq, how do you sleep at night, Mr Blair?".

And Brighton nurse Marion Brown: "Would you wipe somebody's backside for £5?"

It's a long time since the supposed rottweilers of Westminster hit home like that.

Updated: 08:50 Friday, February 25, 2005