'Gosh!" exclaims Tony Blair, looking at The Northern Echo's front page of May 2, 1997. The headline screams "Blair's Britain" above a large picture of a jubilant Mr Blair and his wife Cherie arriving at Aycliffe Leisure Centre - the count which swept him to the biggest landslide victory in modern British history was underway.

"Y'know, I used to look like that," he says with a grin. He's lost a little more hair and grown a few more worrylines around the big, pale blue eyes through which he stares intently at the people he's meeting.

His eye alights on a young face in the bottom left-hand corner of the picture. "And I tell you who doesn't look like that any more, and it's Nicky." He points to his middle son, then 11. "He's up here now," he says, indicating the height of the 15-year-old by pointing to his shoulder.

"The last four years have gone very quickly, in a flash."

His reaction to the picture is very different to the one, just a few minutes earlier, when West Auckland farmer Stephen Cleminson shows him the tear-stained copy of his daughter Jessica's diary. Over three vivid pages she writes of her anguish at hearing that her favourite cow, Caroline, has to be slaughtered because the family farm has been infected with foot-and-mouth disease.

"Sheeesh," exclaims the Prime Minister with a long drawn-out syllable. Even after all he has seen in these last seven weeks, he seems genuinely moved by how the crisis has affected one eight-year-old girl in County Durham.

"I know more about foot-and-mouth now than I ever thought I would, I should or I could, but this is very different," he says.

He asks her father how she's coping and learns that she's back on the farm but unable to bring herself to visit the shed where Caroline used to live. In small talk, Mr Cleminson tells him how Jessica wants to become a vet, that she likes poetry and her favourite pop band is "West...err...something".

"Westlife?" volunteers the Prime Minister. Then, remarkably proudly for the man in charge of the fourth largest economy in the world, he boasts: "I met them the other day."

The main purpose of Mr Blair meeting Mr Cleminson was not to swap pop trivia - "one of Westlife has just married the daughter of Bertie Aherne, the Irish prime minister," says Mr Blair - but to find out how the farmer sees the future. He encourages Mr Cleminson to pursue his plans of diversifying into a small caravan site and possibly renting one of his barns for light industrial use.

"These are exactly the sort of things that people might be able to do," says Mr Blair. "But we have also got to look at what we want from our farming industry. A lot of production is driven, not by what people want, but by the way the Common Agricultural Policy is structured. It is curious that you don't ask what you want this policy to achieve. Instead, you have the policy and then everything has to fit into it.

"I don't agree with people who say that the farming industry should be treated like any other industry. I think the farming industry is special in that farmers are the stewards and custodians of the countryside. On the other hand, we can't carry on increasing subsidies. There has to be some market-driven solution."

That, though, is for the future. Controlling the disease is the present. "There are no easy answers to this," he says. "People keep saying to me that they want definitive answers, but there are no definitive answers. All we can say is that it happens in 20 countries around the world at any one time and there are huge arguments in every country, but the only thing we do know is that every country will slaughter out the infected animals.

"You can't not do that. It's a very ugly way of dealing with it but it has to be done."

Vaccination, he feels, could have a part to play in hotspots like Cumbria but he says it is not the complete answer. "And it has to have farmers' consent," he says. "I understand their problems with it. They say the present policy is beginning to work so why add another dimension to it. But we have to act responsibly by telling people the full scientific advice we are getting." And he goes on to repeat that, y'know, there are no easy, definitive answers to any of this, and also to repeat the line that everyone knows by now about the countryside being open for business.

"I think the work we did before Easter helped the tourist industry have a better time than people expected," he says. "But there's still more to be done."

This is another phrase which he uses regularly in the interview, particularly when addressing wider aspects of his Government's performance. "There's a lot been done but I'm the first to say there's a lot still to do," he says.

In fact, as he bangs the table to compare what Labour promised in 1997 (a slap directly in front of him) with what has been achieved (a slap a foot further on) with people's expectations (a slap at arm's length), he sounds a little frustrated that the electorate is demanding so much so soon.

"No government has ever transformed this country in one term of office," he says. "The central theme for a second term will be to create a society where everyone has a chance, not just a few."

Naturally, he refuses to reveal the date of the General Election - "I should be giving The Northern Echo a big scoop, but I'm afraid it's no comment" - but, as an academic exercise, he is prepared to ponder on the five pledges he would put before the country if an election were to be called tomorrow.

He pauses before each one, weighing up his priorities: "Strong economy and low mortgages; unemployment down, employment up; making sure we get the extra doctors and nurses for the health service; carry on improving primary and secondary school results; more police on the beat."

Then his familiar refrain reappears: "There is a consensus that the Conservative Party has lost its way but people still expect us to come up to the mark.

"There are certain things done. Certain, if you like, almost symbolic things done - the minimum wage, £200 winter allowance for pensioners, free TV licence for those over 75. They would never have been done by the Conservatives.

"I think in some ways we have achieved more than we thought we could four years ago."

These, though, are the easy questions which are all answered unhurriedly and thoughtfully. It's the final one that's the killer, and he stumbles hesitantly over his reply.

"Yeah...I think...y'know..." he begins when quizzed about his Newcastle team's chances in Saturday's big match against Sunderland.

"As... an election maybe approaches it becomes less and less wise to answer that..." He rocks back in his chair, plucking up the courage to predict a Newcastle win which will upset his agent John Burton who's accompanied him on the visit.

"I think it will be a black and white day, but I don't know, well wait and see... but that's not John's view I can tell you. He's red and white through and through."

The consummate politician, Mr Blair even manages to be all things to all North-East people on derby day.