The key is breaking clear of the press

Philip Gould

It urges the Labour leadership to bulldoze its way through periods of bad press and not to overload voters with policy initiatives.

It is the fourth memo to be leaked from within Tony Blair's inner circle in the last few months.

The memo draws on the experience of the Clinton administration in dealing with potentially ruinous bad publicity for the president such as the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky affairs.

It states: "There will be bad days, bad weeks. Rather than fighting this, use it as evidence of resolve.

"You can keep going against a bad press for weeks or even months, providing you consciously implement your agenda. The key is breaking clear of the press."

Endless announcements

Mr Gould advises the government to prepare a rigorously-planned long-term timetable for initiatives and to include periods of quiet so as not to overload the electorate with endless announcements.

"This is the essential tool in getting control of the agenda back", he says.

The memo urges Labour to "use the hostile press" to show that not everything is spin.

It also calls on ministers to "stay focused" and not to get distracted by the media.

Mr Gould adds: "Follow the voters rather than the media."

'A revolutionary change'

He suggests that adopting these changes would be "a revolutionary change" for the Labour leadership.

All of Clinton's aides, including Mr Sosnik, were "certain" that Labour would "crush" the Conservatives at the election, the memo said.

Mr Gould's advice may be reflected in Mr Blair's recent comments that he would "rather be right than popular" and that he accepts he cannot please everybody.

Memo 'familiar'

The prime minister's spokesman confirmed that the memo was "familiar", but brushed off its significance.

He said: "One of the lessons we learned from the last leaks was that this stuff comes in and it goes out and it is important to keep focused on the things we are doing."

While this latest memo is the fourth to be leaked from inside 10 Downing Street, officials are still no closer to finding the mole.

Previous leaks have led to fruitless hunts and a spokesman refused to saw whether this latest leak would prompt another investigation.