Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday promised to have his penchant for empty promises "under control" by September at the latest.

During Prime Minister's Question Time, the Leader of the Opposition, Iain Duncan-Smith, witheringly queried the premier's forthcoming engagements, and added that his unfulfilled and vaccuous promises had increased by over 50 a day in the previous 12 months.

Although Mr Blair promised to have these Tourette's-like outbursts under control by the Autumn, Downing Street quickly issued a series of clarifications to downplay expectations. First they said he meant his promises "would decrease in real terms", then that they would "not increase faster than inflation" and finally, by 7am this morning, that they would "reduce negatively in line with balanced fiscal projections to produce a step-change of end user attenuation within field-bounded conditionalisation. And that's a promise."