POLITICIANS always claim to tell it how it is, to be straight with the electorate.

With a General Election due in the next year or so, they will no doubt be trying to convince us that they are being as straight as they have ever been, at least since the last time there were votes to be won.

It is a shame though, that when they attempt to own up to failures by themselves or the parties they represent, they up the syllable count.

Hazel Blears may be one of the country's smallest MPs, but she uses some of the biggest words. Witness, last weekend's "lamentable failure to communicate with the electorate" blast at the Government's recent performance.

Why not come out and say what everyone is thinking. "Look, we're a bit rubbish at the moment, let's pull our fingers out,eh?"

It's not as if no-one knows how bad things are for Labour, is it? Ms Blears would hardly be giving away a big secret by being blunt about it.

Right now, the political landscape resembles that of the mid-1990s, when an end-of-its-tether Conservative government stumbled about listlessly, as Tony Blair (remember him?) and Co waited in the wings.

Gordon Brown has clearly been invaded by some alien pest intent on draining him of his lifeforce, so listless and haggard does he now appear.

Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling's answer to the economic crisis engulfing us is to add an extra nought to everything and smile inanely.

James Purnell, hampered it must be said, by the most intensely smackable face ever seen on a British politician, is so keen to impress as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, he seems hell bent on abolishing pensions and getting us all to work until we drop dead, thus single-handedly delivering the Government from the increasingly costly need to support anyone in their old age.

Ms Blears is at least partly right. There has been, and remains, a lamentable failure to communicate with the electorate. What she has failed to acknowledge however, is that the messages the government seeks to communicate are fundamentally flawed too.

As she might say, at least in public, the Government finds itself well and truly up a river of untreated waste minus the requisite paddling equipment.