There was no London-based national press conference from Labour this morning – instead Mr Blair is giving a speech on education in the Bolton constituency of his education secretary, Ruth Kelly.
"Thank you for doing such a great job as education secretary – you're a great MP too," Mr Blair compliments her as he steps up to the podium, not mentioning, but clearly mindful of the fact that she is Labour's most vulnerable cabinet minister in this election, with a majority of just over 5,500 in her Bolton West constituency.
"People should pursue their political cause in a decent and well-mannered way" he says, after an egg was apparently thrown at her and the Fathers4Justice group attempted to handcuff her at an event in the constituency the night before.
10.55am: Before the serious policy stuff on education, Mr Blair addressed the new Tory poster campaign which calls him a "liar", saying the Tories only attack him "when all else fails".
"My response is I will talk about the issues. I don't care in the least about attacks on my character – I do care about the issues facing this country," Mr Blair says.
Those preliminary rebuttals out of the way, the PM gets down to the issue of education – a full story will appear here shortly.
