EVEN five years on, those of a sensitive disposition will sometimes find themselves wondering where they can lay their hands on a cork to stop Tony Blair spouting another bit of populist nonsense.

The signs are usually there. Tony pops up on television or radio and, just before he opens his mouth, you feel the rush of an approaching sound-bite, a little like the disturbance of air before an underground train arrives. Oh no, it's one of those, you think. Adopting the modern parlance, you might also think - don't even go there, Tony.

But he's gone there before you can find that cork you knew you kept handy somewhere or other for the purpose of prime ministerial bunging up.

The latest piece of flapdoodle con-cerns Downing Street's plans to dock child benefit from the parents of tearaway children.

It would have been reassuring to discover that Tony Blair learnt the hard way with all that ill-fated noise about police officers having to march misbehaving youths to cash machines in order to extract an on-the-spot fine. But no, with that foolish proposal long forgotten, he's mounted his populist pulpit again.

This time round, Mr Blair has given his personal backing to a proposal to withdraw child benefit as a punis-hment for "antisocial behaviour".

Putting on his best frown - well, I heard this on the radio, but he was definitely frowning out loud - Tony Blair said: "If you ask anybody the single biggest problem they have... it is antisocial behaviour."

Of course, only a low-down sneak would at this point suggest that such a punitive policy should include hefty fines for wealthy parents whose children are found being sick in Leicester Square after completing their exams.

Young Euan Blair was, briefly, an embarrassment to his parents after he was arrested for being drunk and incapable in July 2000. Dragging up that one incident is probably unfair. It was easy to feel sympathy for the Blairs when Euan went ever so slightly astray. Yet that episode doesn't seem to have given Tony Blair any greater understanding of the difficulties parents can sometimes face.

But that is only an aside. There are other more important reasons why Tony Blair's latest populist lurch to the right would be unfair. Certain benefits, such as those embracing unemployment, disability and mater-nity, have always had conditions attached. But child benefit has always been a universal, no-questions-asked benefit, paid to all parents in the country. As such it is a useful and sometimes vital support to many hard-pressed families. It is there as a prop for parents, not as an inducement to make children behave better.

Further to this, how would it help to take money away from mostly poor parents who are struggling to get by as it is? This proposal would by its very nature hit the poorest families hardest, as better-off parents whose children misbehave will more easily be able to absorb the child benefit "fine" imposed because of their straying offspring.

Taking more money away from hard-up families is hardly likely to improve matters, and could well lead to further problems precisely due to the increased lack of cash.

Besides, it is hard to see how such a forfeit would do anything to stop antisocial behaviour. Such a punish-ment would be too late in the day, nipping vindictively at a symptom of a far greater social problem, rather than looking at what might cause that problem.

None of this is to deny the very real harm done by a minority of law-flouting youths. But such difficulties deserve better than another of Tony Blair's superficial, slap-on bits of populism.

Now where did I put that cork?

Updated: 10:10 Thursday, May 02, 2002