WE live in extraordinary times. Yesterday, the Prime Minister brought the French President into the heart of his Sedgefield constituency - a constituency where 70 per cent are opposed to the single currency. Probably the same percentage will not have liked what they would have overheard about giving up British vetoes at next week's Nice summit had they been flies on the wall at The County pub.

It goes beyond that, though. The rail network is in absolute crisis. Not even German bombers could do what a few cracks in the line have done to the British timetable.

Half the country has been under floodwater; the other half has been queuing for over-priced petrol. There's no certainty, despite the money dished out to Alan Milburn, that the health service will withstand another winter flu crisis, and all the while the Government has been pushing through widely unpopular legislation: equalising the gay age of consent and privatising Britain's air traffic control.

Yet Mr Blair's popularity in the polls is undiminished. He is about 15 points head; private Conservative polls show 17 points with Labour's lead even greater in the marginal constituencies that usually decide General Elections. Last week, Mr Blair even overcame his biggest threat - voter apathy - and sailed home in three by-elections. And so, while Mr Blair and Jacques Chirac were not dining on British beef in Aycliffe Village, the political attention switched to how the Conservatives had managed not only to miss open goals but to concede so many at the back as well. Even with the right-wing popular media whipping themselves into a frenzy over a proposed European army, William Hague's mob has been unable to make any of it stick: 55 per cent of the people do not believe that a European rapid reaction force is anything to be concerned about.

It is still pay-back time for the Tories on transport - they, after all, created the rail mess - and the public still believes Labour is the least worst option to sort it out. But the Conservatives' transport spokesman - Bernard Jenkin, for those who like trivia - has not even hinted how he will resolve the mess. The same could be said of health, education and tax - the real issues that decide British elections.

With the right-wing media falling upon Mr Hague's leadership, the spotlight has fallen on the heir apparent, Michael Portillo. Once the great right hope, he is now portrayed as a drifting liberal, uncertain about his future.

Yet we do live in extraordinary times. If flu-stricken bodies start piling up in corridors like passengers crammed into broken railway carriages, and fuel protestors again snarl up the roads, Mr Blair's lead may evaporate, because it is not an endorsement of him but a vivid portrayal of how ineffectual the Conservatives are as an opposition.