TONY Blair said this week that you can't please all the people all the time, which became only too clear when he was pelted with tomatoes by a protestor.

No Prime Minister deserves that. It can be worse than an assault because it is so demeaning. But he took it, and it struck me that his smile didn't even slip. I don't know what he must have been feeling on the inside, but it just shows how important it is to portray the right image.

Much has been said about the political parties being all image, all spin. But I can assure them that the next General Election will not be won on image or by spinning the Press. The public understands exactly what spin is. The electorate is more educated and sophisticated than ever before because the spin doctors have been exposed.

Labour at the last election just had to turn up to win because the Conservatives had messed it up so badly. But we have a situation this time where the Conservatives are getting their act in order.

Abraham Lincoln once famously said: "You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time; but you can't fool all the people all the time."

By the same token, you cannot fool all the electorate all the time and the next election will be closer than both sides think, the contest being decided on real issues.

Image too was at the heart of the recent controversy surrounding the 16-year-old girl who wanted breast enlargements. It's important for a 16-year-old to have self-confidence and if she had been having a nose job, no one would have been interested. It only got into the Press at all because it was about breasts.

If she has a genuine hang-up about any part of her body, I don't see what is wrong with wanting to change it, particularly if she has the support of her family. She wants to have what she perceives as normal breasts, not huge ones.

The main thrust of everyone's argument seemed to be that a 16-year-old shouldn't have such an operation at all. The real issue as to why she felt she needed an enlargement wasn't properly aired. What matters most is what she thinks, anyone else's opinion, including mine, isn't important.

Image comes through again with the new England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson. He comes to manage the national side against a backdrop of unease. There is a sense that he isn't the man for the job, partly because he is foreign. He's also just left Lazio early and under a cloud.

I get the feeling the Press are waiting for him to fail even before he has started the job and are on the sidelines ready to savage him if he does. He's obviously a man conscious of his image; he has an eye for detail. He wears a flash watch, expensive suits and generally hasn't a hair out of place.

But I did notice one little detail he hadn't - he had a button missing from his jacket sleeve, a slight imperfection which could be a bad omen.

I'm a big fan of Terry Venables, who has been very supportive of the new appointment. I think he probably knows he's the real man for the job and he's handled the snub with great dignity.

Still, if Terry had become England coach, he wouldn't be at Middlesbrough doing such a good job. It's amazing how the presence of one man can turn things around. So England's loss is definitely Middlesbrough's gain.