It was intended as a keynote speech to regain the political initiative, reminding traditional Labour voters that "old-fashioned values" and delivering "opportunity for all" were still at the top of the government's agenda. But the British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, hadn't factored in the spirited members of the Women's Institute (WI).
Mr Blair joked yesterday that addressing the conference of the National Federation of Women's Institutes, a conservative organisation which brings women together in mainly rural areas to campaign on women's issues, was his "most terrifying" speaking engagement.
The WI has a reputation as a formidable organisation and is perceived as representing the key voters of "middle Britain" that Labour wants to target. But the audience of 10,000 WI members at Wembley Arena at first warmed to Mr Blair, laughing when he made a joke about the members of the Yorkshire branch, who posed nude for a calendar last year.
Mr Blair even received a good reception when he talked of recapturing old-fashioned values and reforming public services to root out elitism.
But when he turned his attention to Labour's modernisation of the National Health Service, some members slow-handclapped and others heckled before walking out of the arena. Mr Blair was accused of ignoring pensioners and the health service, and of "hijacking" the conference with a party political speech.
After the speech, the national chairman of the WI, Ms Helen Carey, said that Downing Street, not the WI, had "expressed a wish" for Mr Blair to speak to the meeting "and we said, please don't be political because it will backfire on you".
But while Downing Street played down the protest, saying it was "a bit much to expect they are all card-carrying members of the Labour party", the Conservative party leader, Mr William Hague, seized on Mr Blair's frosty reception, insisting that Labour had not delivered on the health service. Labour had abandoned middle Britain, he said, and it was now clear that "middle Britain is abandoning him".
Dismissing Labour's recent attacks on elitism, Mr Hague said the Prime Minister's speech and that of the Education Secretary, Mr David Blunkett, who spoke yesterday of "opening up new aspiration" throughout society, were nothing new. "This latest relaunch of the government seems like the same old words," Mr Hague said. "This talk of traditional values by Mr Blair . . . I think it's some kind of joke."
The Conservative party chairman, Mr Michael Ancram, also accused Mr Blair of trying to "relaunch" his government by focusing on traditional values in the aftermath of an attack on elitism in education by the Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown.
The Chancellor had attempted to "re-create the politics of envy", Mr Ancram said. "What they haven't realised is that people are not interested any more in the promises and the language. What they are interested in is that, after three years, those promises have not been kept and there has been no delivery."
The Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Charles Kennedy, criticised Labour's anti-elitism campaign and the Tory attack on the "liberal elite" at the heart of government. He said both parties had generated an "artificial debate", with the Conservatives adopting a "populist, dogmatic view on the one hand, [and] Labour coming out with a here, there and everywhere approach".