Politicians rallied around the British Prime Minister and his family yesterday as 16-year-old Euan Blair said he was "very sorry" after confirmation that he had been arrested for being drunk and incapable in Leicester Square on Wednesday night.
As Mr Blair presided over the weekly cabinet meeting before his big speech to black church leaders in Brighton, and a solo appearance on the BBC's Question Time programme, the Liberal Democrat leader, Mr Charles Kennedy, confirmed that sympathy would be the Westminster response to a "slight domestic setback" familiar to families with teenage children across the country.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman, Mr Alistair Campbell, confirmed yesterday that the teenager, who like thousands of others had been celebrating the end of his GCSE examinations, had been found lying alone on the ground by a patrolling officer, having been vomiting and clearly ill. An ambulance was called but no treatment was required and he was taken to Charing Cross police station, where he first gave a false name and address. "The police searched him and established his correct identity," the spokesman said. Euan was released without charge at around 1 a.m. and driven home.
On the morning after the 16-year-old was said to be "very sorry for the inconvenience he caused to the police, the state he was in, and for the false statement that he made".
A Downing Street statement continued: "He is in no doubt of the seriousness of it and the view that his parents take of it. They will of course fully co-operate with any further action the police propose to take. In the near future he will have to return to Charing Cross with his parents to hear what, if any, further action is going to be taken."
Mr and Mrs Blair accepted that, as this was a case of underage drinking which had required the involvement of the police, the press would report the incident. But they resolved to continue to do all they could to protect their children's privacy and ensure "as normal an upbringing as possible".
As Number 10 delivered the facts of the matter there would have been natural anxiety about any attempts to exploit the incident by linking it to the Prime Minister's call for police powers to levy on-the-spot fines on drunken yobs and hooligans.
But Mr Kennedy set the political tone, saying: "I think everybody in the country will have every sympathy with the Blair family. We all shared a great deal of happiness for them with the new baby arriving, and they are experiencing a slight domestic setback of a type which probably affects just about every home in the land."
That same measured tone was reflected by the headmaster of Euan's school, the Oratory in London, who told the Press Association he would not be taking any disciplinary action, since the school policy forbidding drunkenness only applied when pupils were the direct responsibility of the school, for example, when in uniform or on a school trip.
And while upholding the media's right to report the incident, since Euan is over 16 and was not at school at the time, the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission said he was sure all editors would take into account "the Prime Minister's and Mrs Blair's clear commitment to do all they can to protect the privacy of their children, and bear in mind the general provisions in the code [of practice] on the reporting of private lives of children and of family life".