The Sketch: Simon Carr

It's a straightforward question. But, half a dozen times, Blair dodged it

Idleness, indifference, ineptitude, it's actually sickening, and why do we put up with it? The Sketch denounces these things. Roundly. Squarely. And in funny little rhomboid shapes. It denounces itself. The Sketch ought to be in the House of Lords, where the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives are competing to see who can most thoroughly disembowel David Blunkett's Anti-Terrorism Bill.

That's where the action is, but it's a late debate, and I've had a long lunch, we've all got behind and still haven't caught up with yesterday. Which is the day before yesterday, now.

At Prime Minister's questions on Wednesday, there was Tony Blair refusing time and again to answer a perfectly straightforward question. How much his health spending commitment – or target, or aim, or aspiration, or intention to evaluate the upside of deciding whether the figure should be a commitment or a target or an aspiration – would cost.

The Prime Minister has said, and sometimes so fleetingly none of us knew whether or not he was joking, that Britain's health spending would rise to the European Union average within five years.

A throwaway on the Breakfast with Frost programme. A casual mention in the House of Commons. While no one expects ministers to be held to what they say in the Commons any more, Mr Frost does expect to be taken seriously. None the less, on Wednesday Mr Blair was asked the same question half a dozen times by half a dozen different members and he refused to answer it.

How much will this European average cost the taxpayer? "About 8 per cent" of GDP. How much? "Roughly 8 per cent." But how much money? "We will meet the European average." That's how much? "We will raise spending to the European average." Which is? "Roughly around 8 per cent." In cash terms? "We will reach the European average which is 8 per cent." He wouldn't say how much. Estimates vary from £5bn extra to £20bn extra. Actually, it's a moving target.

Yesterday, Michael Howard, whose dark, secret ways are endearing themselves to the Sketch, exploited the hostility of the Second Lord of the Treasury (Gordon Brown) to the First Lord of the Treasury (Tony Blair).

He allowed them to admit that Tony Blair was offering the European health spend from 1998. Yes: in four years' time we will be matching the European average from four years past. It's an increase, Treasury said, of 0.1 per cent of GDP. "Is this the sum of the Government's ambition!" Mr Howard jeered engagingly. The Chancellor must have been as pleased as his shadow.

Also from Wednesday, surfacing in Hansard yesterday, Mr Blunkett made reference to his astonishing powers of recall: "Paragraphs 40 to 43 of chapter seven linked to chapter 7 paragraphs 83 to the end, I thought that I had better memorise those during lunchtime – that was for Simon Carr of The Independent."

I think we must all – not the Sketch, naturally – be humbled to see how the press can so improve the performance of a Home Secretary.

After my last Blunkett-sponsored appearance in Hansard, I asked colleagues how the Home Secretary knew that I bought wine in Sainsbury's.

"You do know MI5 report to him?" my colleagues said.

We all laughed. How we laughed.

Simoncarr75@hotmail.com