By Nick Assinder BBC News Online political correspondent

Blair was not about to be pinned down

And, as the conference broke up there were some more-than-usually disgruntled journalists complaining loudly about the way Tony Blair had conducted proceedings.

Individual hacks were totting up the number of hostile versus friendly questioners called by the prime minister and darkly muttering about the bowling of "soft balls".

But, even if there was some justification for the moans, this is a pointless exercise.

The prime minister has the perfectly serviceable excuse that he does his best to balance those he calls to ask him a question between broadcasters, newspapers, national, regional and foreign outlets.

And, in any case, it always sounds like special pleading by journalists who have failed to nail their target.

Batted away

More important, perhaps, was the fact that it quickly became evident that, as predicted, Mr Blair had no intention of answering any questions about the Kelly affair.

That was all for the judicial inquiry, he said on numerous occasions.

Questions about Kelly affair were batted away

Well, that inquiry will have to range pretty wide if it is to address all the questions the prime minister batted away into its court.

Equally, questions about weapons of mass destruction were brushed aside with pleas to wait for the report by the group of experts in Iraq currently hunting for them.

He suggested he knew something about their work which, much as he would love to, he just could not tell us about.

So, with what was left, it was pretty much business as usual.

Awful events

He refused to be drawn into questions about his resignation if no weapons of mass destruction are found - probably his most uncomfortable moment.

He ducked questions about his own conscience, insisting everyone would have to "learn lessons" from the awful events surrounding Dr Kelly's death.

And he continued his gradual shifting of the justification for the war on Iraq - giving as much weight to regime change and the possible link between Saddam Hussein's WMD and terror groups as he gave to the threat from Iraq.

The whole proceedings had kicked off with an interminable briefing, with projected graphs, pie charts and the like, from the head of the prime minister's delivery unit.

It was intended to show how the government was delivering on its pledges.

And it was about as enjoyable as being forced to sit through the neighbours' slide show of their holiday snaps - here's one of us on the beach, here's one of us on the beach with the dog and here's one of the tide coming in.

And there were some lighter moments. Most notably when the prime minister responded to a female journalist's question: "are you ready for me now" with: "I'm always ready for you Catherine."

We've all done it. Mouth first, brain a late second.

And you could almost see the cartoon speech bubble over the prime minister's head declaring: "Why the hell did I say that?!"

It broke the tension for a while, but did nothing to dispel the impression this was a press conference with someone determined not to answer the difficult questions.