BIG Conversation - even the name of Labour's new wheeze makes you faint with dismay.

It sounds childishly empty, and you know that nothing will come of it. In a couple of months time, it will be parked up alongside all the other obsolete ideas that were, in their day, "big".

Cynicism is something modern British politics invites. It is so easy to look through the Big Conversation and see it as an attempt to make Tony Blair look as if he is listening to real, ordinary people.

Yet, momentarily, let's suspend cynicism. For so long, real, ordinary people have been moaning that the Government doesn't listen over tuition fees, foundation hospitals, war in Iraq. So it is difficult to condemn Mr Blair just for asking.

And Mr Blair is right. We do face some very awkward questions: where will the money come from if we do want more people to go to university?

But such is the Government's record, the Big Conversation still looks like a Big Photo-Opportunity.