01.18 | Tony Blair's "24 hours to save the Government"
If you are familiar with the superb US television series, 24, you will understand why some of the Prime Minister's allies have suddenly started to nickname him "Agent Tony". In the hit series, which is filmed in "real time" over 24 hours, the intrepid federal agent Jack Bauer overcomes apparently insuperable odds to save the world from all kinds of villainy.
Senior Blairites - slightly unhinged, I think, by Friday's headlines about "24 hours to save the Government" - believe that their boss can pull off the same round-the-clock triumph next week, when he faces the knife-edge Commons vote on top-up fees only a few hours before the publication of the Hutton Report. "If Jack Bauer can do it, so then can Tony," one of Mr Blair's closest allies told me. To which one could only respond: if you say so.
The Sunday Telegraph gives us an amusing mention of '24'. Well, nearly amusing.
Senior Blairites - slightly unhinged, I think, by Friday's headlines about "24 hours to save the Government" - believe that their boss can pull off the same round-the-clock triumph next week, when he faces the knife-edge Commons vote on top-up fees only a few hours before the publication of the Hutton Report. "If Jack Bauer can do it, so then can Tony," one of Mr Blair's closest allies told me. To which one could only respond: if you say so.
UPDATE: The Guardian makes the same 'joke'. Aww, bless 'em.
