TORY MP John Greenway landed the plum first question to Tony Blair this week. A rare chance to land a blow on the Prime Minister. The audience watching on television must have thought Mr Greenway, the member for Ryedale, failed to even lay a glove on his man.

But the reality back at Westminster was quite different.

The PM had admitted flouting a long-standing manifesto pledge. And had been disingenuous in the extreme.

Mr Greenway's question - which Mr Blair had not, in theory, seen in advance - was about the sale of school playing fields.

It sounded pretty good. "Does the Prime Minister recall that Labour's strategy for sport at the 1997 General Election promised to tackle the decline in school sport by ending the sale of playing fields?

"Does he therefore share my surprise that a written Parliamentary answer I have received shows that far from reducing, the number of such sales is increasing and accelerating under his Government to the extent that more than £140 million in proceeds was received in the last three years?

"This is more than ever before. Does it remain his policy to protect these playing fields? Or is it just another broken promise like tax?" he asked.

But Mr Blair, on the face of it, had him beat.

Apparently off the cuff, he ranted back: "The figures under the Conservative years of some 1,400 playing fields sold-off are now down to three a month under this Government.

"In addition, there is £1 billion of extra investment going in to sport and for the first time pupils in schools will have the ability to get at least some hours sport every week.

"This was something denied to them under 18 years of Conservative government."

Now, however, we must look at what Mr Blair actually said - and how he came to say it.

The first thing to note is that Mr Blair did know the question was coming.

He has an army of advisers paid to work out which questions the Opposition MPs drawn out of the hat every week are going to ask.

They trawl through the MPs' interests and any written questions they have asked in recent weeks.

The PM is then handed a snappy soundbite on almost every topic he could face.

Mr Greenway is a frontbench spokesman on sport and has raised playing field sales many times.

He had also tabled a series of Parliamentary questions - getting his answer as late as Tuesday night.

The advance warning did not spare the PM from having to admit tossing aside a manifesto pledge made in 1997, though. Mr Greenway had the figures to prove it.

So the solution was spin.

Yes, the playing fields were still being sold - but the Tories had been much worse: 1,400 had gone under them, he appeared to be saying. Just you count'em.

Under us, it's only three per month. Surely that's OK?

Actually, it's not much better at all. Because what Mr Blair did was take one figure - the number of playing fields sold in total by the Tories in 18 years - and contrast it with a monthly figure under Labour.

Multiply 18 years by 12 months and we have 216 months of Tory rule. Next divide 1,400 by 216.

The bottom line is that the Tories were only flogging six per month.

This is a quite different picture to the one painted by Mr Blair.

So remember, his truth - while not a lie - is often stranger than fact.

Updated: 11:09 Friday, April 26, 2002