DO people need to like their prime ministers? This question emerged during the third week of a British general election campaign in which sleaze and silly animal impersonation stunts gave way, at last, to political conflicts.

The question was specifically asked about Labour's leader by the Daily Telegraph's Janet Daley in a column headlined: "Do you know anyone who actually likes Tony Blair?"

While this pejorative view was brushed aside as an example of right wing bias, Ms Daley was acknowledging, without necessarily realising it, one of the underlying themes of this election. Indeed, it's probably true of all elections everywhere.

For some reason a lot of people (especially party spin doctors) seem to think liking the leader is very important indeed. In what many assume is a kind of presidential clash between John Major and Tony Blair, the fondness factor is therefore viewed as crucial.

The argument is that liking engenders trusting. Consequently, we will follow our leader, accept what he/ she says (even when we have doubts) and encourage others to do so.

But the notion that a person likes or dislikes someone is both subjective and relative. So the process by which a party's media gurus convince the public that their leader is more likeable than the other is inevitably about creating perceptions. We are dealing, in the end, with media image rather than reality.

It has been abundantly clear from his seven years in office that Mr Major has not attracted the kind of public admiration enjoyed by his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher.

But the adoration of Maggie was not what it seemed. It was confined to relatively few people, not to mention two thirds of the press.

Many of Maggie's most fervent supporters, such as taxi drivers, small businessmen and pub orators, knew the truth because they met people every day who were antipathetic to her.

It therefore became accepted that conversations about the Iron Lady would inevitably be prefaced by the phrase: "Whether you like her or not you've got to admit that . . ." There was a wide variation after the opening: "She's tough ... she says what she means ... he's got this country going again . . ." and so on.

Lady Thatcher was not liked. She was respected (and history's truth tellers, or myth makers, will probably rob her of that too). Her fall from power came at the moment when she began to lose the regard of those around her.

In their eyes she had become imperious. Conservative MPs thought that what was required in a decade ludicrously dubbed the Caring Nineties was Thatcher without the autocracy.

Hence we had "nice" Mr Major. Few people who meet him ever dispute that he is a pleasant man, easy smiler and good small talker, just the kind of chap you would want working next to you.

Every political problem he has faced - from the ERM debacle just three months after the 1992 election to the allegations about cash for questions among his party colleagues - has tended to prove the old adage that nice guys rarely make good leaders.

Media representations of him have reinforced this view. That congenial image of a man beaming a wide, ready, open smile on television and in newspaper pictures has suggested to the public that he is too naive for the job

Even the rare glimpses of genuine backbone, like the revelation that he had called three of his cabinet colleagues "bastards", was portrayed as petulance.

DESPITE this simplistic view of Mr Major as weak, pollsters in the months before called the election noted that the man was more liked than his party. That was why, we were told, the campaign would be built around his personality.

This made no sense, however, of the long press campaign which vilified him for his supposed inability to lead. That contradiction lies at the heart of the Tory strategy.

The same desire by Labour, to encourage voters to see Mr Blair as a likeable figure, is also proving to be a difficult one to sell.

At Christmas he made a couple of informal, non political television appearances talking about football. He has charisma on the platform and great presence when making speeches in the Commons, but he came across in those programmes as awkward, almost false, when chatting about England's 1966 World Cup victory.

Again, I stress that this is the image he projected which, I can assure you, is not how he is in private.

It is profoundly startling to discover that in an age dominated by the screen Mr Blair is not a natural performer on TV. Even on his own ground, in an interview with Jeremy Paxman on BBC2's Newsnight at the opening of the campaign, he did not do well.

Paxman surprised him with a question about the Sun's use of topless girls. It was not Mr Blair's unwillingness to give a straight answer that mattered so much (dodging questions is part of political life, after all) as the obvious way he did so. For a second, he looked and sounded evasive.

Mr Blair doubtless took heart that Newsnight is seen by too few of the people he needs to convince of his likeability (the masses and those all important floating voters) to make a real difference. But his failure to sparkle was surely noted by his sharp minded press team and, in spite of denials, must have weighed on their minds when negotiating that doomed television debate.

If it had gone ahead their man would have faced a huge audience and, given his massive poll lead, he could only have suffered if caught out by an interviewer. Mr Major is, by general consensus, adjudged to perform well in the intimate surroundings of a TV studio.

THERE was another telling moment last Friday, during Mr Blair's press conference in Scotland, when he was being questioned about the party's devolution plans. He was trying to explain why, if the Scottish parliament was to have the power to raise taxes, it would not be allowed to use it. At the best of times, that would be a tough one.

Under intense media pressure, with journalists constantly seeking a gaffe, it was very sticky indeed. As with Newsnight, Mr Blair suddenly appeared to go on auto pilot, reiterating points he had made before.

Nothing wrong or unusual about that, of course. It was the way he did it. His body language, his gleaming pate, his glazed smile all suggested, if not evasiveness, then equivocation".

It hardly matters at the moment, for the public is seeing what it wants to see. The psychological grip of "time for a change" has too powerful a hold. But there are obvious clues to Mr Blair's future problems if Ms Daley is truly articulating the general view when she asks: "Why can I find no one of my age, class or political persuasion who likes him?"

She went way over the top by suggesting that he is loathed. Then again, surely the more important question is whether it matters.

Do we need to like him to vote for him? Can we trust him without liking him?

. Roy Greenslade is a London based media critic and former newspaper editor.