PARLIAMENT is in "purdah" at present. According to Google, which knows most things, the literal translation is a "curtain concealing some Indian women of high birth from public gaze".

Google also reveals that it was later used to describe a state of solitude or isolation. Some writers, like Dante, had it as a state of purgatory.

What the Internet search engine doesn't state is that, in recent times, politicians have adapted the word to refer to the period of time just before an election, in this case the European and Local polls on June 10.

For fear of unfairly influencing the result, the Government is barred from allocating money to different parts of the country or making any announcements which could grab votes.

The logic states that the Tories, Lib Dems, Greens, etc do not hold the purse strings so would be at an obvious disadvantage if Tony Blair started handing out cash for new hospitals, schools or roads.

The reality is a playgroup of bored children throwing a tantrum. And the biggest babies are, of course, the Labour Ministers.

Unlike the others, they have had their favourite toy (the right to make a million announcements each week) taken away. The other lot have just lost their right to rebut or criticise a million announcements a week.

Worst of all was Mr Blair at Prime Minister's Questions. He earned himself a ticking-off from the Speaker. Michael Martin - whose role is often reduced to that of a year one teacher, regardless of "purdah".

Mr Blair got one of his most loyal friends, Stephen McCabe, to ask a question so firmly planted it was ready for chopping down. If he could spare the country any mistake of the 1980s and 1990s, what would it be?

The Prime Minister was delighted. "Most people now would remember mass unemployment going over three million..." Like a bad joke (or at least one his classmates had heard a thousand times) everyone knew how it would finish.

During the time Tory leader Michael Howard had been Employment Secretary it had gone up one million!

Pleased with himself, Mr Blair went on to talk about how the Tories would cut everything except funding for school and hospital budgets - Oliver Letwin, who helps Mr Howard with math, had said so!

Teacher Martin was not amused. "The policies of the Opposition are not really a matter for the prime minister," he said. It had absolutely no effect whatsoever on Mr Blair, who knows much better than to listen to grumpy old Scotsmen.

He grinned like an imp, apologised and declared he would instead talk about the policies he would not be pursuing.

In other words, the policies Mr Howard would introduce if he were ever elected.

Mr Blair said he would continue to invest in additional police, in the New Deal for young people, local government, pensioners.

What he would not do was scrap the minimum wage, abolish the New Deal or "re-introduce the Poll Tax"!

Mentioning the Poll Tax got the biggest cheer of all from his peers - but are the Tories really planning to repeat their biggest ever mistake?

Of course they aren't. But teacher Martin did not have the strength to pull him up again.

Like everyone else, he was counting the minutes until the bell signalling end of class. Unfortunately, there are another four weeks of this "purdah" to go.

Dante was right. It is purgatory and it's only going to get worse.

Updated: 11:25 Friday, May 07, 2004