AS a battered and bemused Tony Blair seeks to finally draw a line under the embarrassing fiasco of the "Cash for Fags" affair that has damaged his reputation as the honest man of British politics, there are many lessons for him to learn.

A number of experienced commentators have remarked that if the Prime Minister and his public relations machine learn them, the embarrassment that has accompanied the U-turn on tobacco sponsorship of Formula One may prove a blessing in disguise.

It is certainly much better that the affair, with its suggestions of sleaze over Grand Prix boss Bernie Ecclestone's £1 million campaign gift, comes now after just six months of the new government.

Such a mess would be far more damaging if an election was imminent. Just ask John Major! And political honeymoons always end - and this one lasted longer than most.

The first lesson to be learned is to make sure, as I argued last week, that Ministers fully consider the impact of their statements. This lesson was not lost on former Tory Deputy Prime MInister Willie Whitelaw, a wily and experienced old politician with the type of experience in office that Mr Blair's administration now so patently lacks.

He was for a time Margaret Thatcher's "Minister for Banana-Skins" - trying to spot potential problems before they materialised.

In one of his better "Willie-isms" he remarked: "In the course of a long political career I have learned that so long as there are bananas there will be banana skins.''

What he meant was that any policy always had its drawbacks and potential pitfalls and these need to be worked out in advance and contingency plans prepared.

Maybe Mr Blair should take another leaf out of Baroness Thatcher's book - after all he has already appropriated so many - and bring one or two of the experienced old warhorses he has disposed of or ignored, such as Gerald Kaufman, Roy Hattersley or even former Premier Lord Callaghan. on board his kitchen Cabinet to perform just such a role. He must have learned that having a coterie of aides with sharp-suites, filofaxes and mobile phones is no guarantee of spotting the political disaster hovering above the clouds before it descends with frightening speed from the till then clear blue sky.

Indeed, another of Lady Thatcher's key aides was her Press Secretary Bernard Ingham who was a former Guardian journalist, Labour supporter and council candidate.

He thought like the Opposition and could warn her in advance of the lines of attack so defences could be prepared. It was only when he became a slavish supporter of herself that his advice and her sure-footedness began to worsen.

Mr Blair is surrounded by just such fans - even his Press Secretary Alistair Campbell's experience as a fine tabloid journalist is partly negated by his position as very much a fellow traveller in the Blairite project.

So maybe, there should be a reconsideration of the policy of clearing out the "old lags" in charge of Whitehall press offices who might be able to give an early warning of how "events'' could rock the government.

But there is one key lesson that Mr Blair and his inner circle need to learn - one which the previous government never learned and which no Whitehall civil servant can help the present administration to learn.

That is to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth once these sort of affairs get going. Over 18 years on innumerable occasions, the Tory refusal to do just that and let the information dribble out over weeks, months or even years turned minor embarrassments into national and international scandals.

One thinks most notably of the "Arms for Iraq" affair and the Scott Report, the General Belgrano sinking and the "Death on the Rock" IRA shootings in Gibraltar.

So with Formula One Fag Funding, as the government's commitment to open and honest government fell apart at the first smell of smoke.

As a barrister, Mr Blair should return to the first principle of his former trade - if not his present one - and insist that in future a rapid, full and honest response to such embarrassments must be the priority.

And the publication and implementation of a comprehensive and effective Freedom of Information Act - which Home Secretary Jack Straw and Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine are alleged to have sabotaged according to the Whitehall grapevine - should be the next.

Such a move might upset the lawyers, spies and Whitehall mandarins who have opposed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster David Clark's efforts to produce such a measure.

If Mr Blair has learnt his lesson and puts his considerable political weight behind such a project, he might save Dr Clark's career, salvage his own reputation, enhance his government's chances of re-election and secure his place in history as just the type of revolutionary honest politician that he believes he is.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.