CLEARLY, sacked Welfare Reform minister Frank Field was highly regarded by Tony Blair to begin with, in that, within hours of winning the election, he handed him responsibility for a flagship New Labour policy and still wanted him in the government team when he took it off him - only for miffed Frank to choose the back benches instead.

But what of the greatly thought-of Mr Field now? From the vicious attacks on him emanating from the Prime Minister's Office and from Cabinet Ministers, you would think that he was a useless egg-headed egotist. "Pathetic," "a complete disgrace" and a "failed joke" were just some of the anonymous denunciations coming from on high.

But even if all of this was true, does not the orchestrated nature of this bitter slagging off say what a nasty lot of people surround our I'm-straight-sort-of-guy Prime Minister and what relish they have to please him as they slam the knife in the back of one who dared to cloud Mr Blair's I'm-the-boss Cabinet reshuffle with a minor, one-man rebellion?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.