A little light relief, if you can take it at the moment.

A snippet in the Daily Mail, recently, with the headline: Dear Mr Pa... How No 10 brushed off a letter from the Premier's father.

"Mr Blair's (late) father was a victim of a Downing Street blunder, former communications adviser Tim Allan revealed.

Leo Blair wrote to his son after his election triumph in 1997, saying how proud he was. He signed himself 'your loving Pa'.

Mr Allan said staff could not read his handwriting and put the letter on a pile reserved for 'long scrawls from mad people'.

A week later, Leo Blair received a reply addressed to Mr L Pa. It regretted that Downing Street could not help and advised him to contact his local MP or Citizens Advice Bureau".

Next to it is another article about Blair, just as comical in its own way. Here is a snippet:

"Mr Cruddas, who thinks Mr Blair should have been truer to Labour's roots, complained that 'the dead hand of Middle England' exerted too much power over Downing Street. According to the MP, this is because Blair 'comes with a completely blank page'.

That is pretty funny :)

"dead hand of Middle England" == "residents of the heartland" or our "middle class"?

"comes with a completely blank page" == "is an empty suit"?