Poor Tony Blair! How can a man (and his advisers) have misjudged the moment so badly?

I actually felt sorry for him as he stood there in front of a Wembley audience of 10,000 thoroughly respectable British women and looked traumatised as the slow hand-clapping began, the booing erupted, and a couple of handfuls of delegates to the Women's Institute national conference got up and walked out.

The Prime Minister's mistake had been to take his speech into the realms of party politics in front of an organisation which prides itself on its a-political nature. It has to do that. It draws its members from all parts of the political spectrum (although I suspect that the overall hue is slightly blue).

A lot of other community organisations - Townswomen's Guilds, Business & Professional Women's Clubs, Men's Forums, Civic Societies and the like - have the same sort of policy, either written into the constitution or tacitly understood. They are non-political and non-denominational.

There are key rules to be followed when addressing such groups. Avoid politics and religion, and if you feel tempted to tell a risque story, err on the side of caution and don't. Break those rules and you're in trouble.

What Tony Blair should have done is sing the praises of the WI for the major contribution it makes to community life in the nation's towns and villages, and for the way it has moved with the times and raised its profile thanks to the glorious fund-raising ladies of Rylstone WI daring to pose as calendar girls.

If he had wanted to dip a tiny toe into political water, he should have kept it on WI territory by commending the way the institute has, as long ago as the 1930s, campaigned on such issues as shorter hours and higher wages for nurses and equal pay for women.

He should also have acknowledged members' concerns about a wide range of countryside matters.

If he had then rounded it off with a clarion call to younger women to come forward in larger numbers to lend their time and talents to this splendid organisation (something I suspect might well happen now members have shown their mettle), he would have left the hall the darling of the conference with 10,000 women thinking well of him.

Instead he sought national headlines (and got them, though for the wrong reasons) with an interesting, reflective but blatantly political speech and put himself into the record books as the only Prime Minister, serving or otherwise, in the entire history of the Universe to be slow hand-clapped by the Women's Institute.

He has learned a valuable lesson: that the organised women of what has been dubbed "Middle England" deserve and demand to be treated with respect. You take them for granted at your peril.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.