Tony Blair's office ended an unprecedented news blackout on the British prime minister's summer holiday location yesterday when a spokeswoman said he and his wife Cherie were staying in Barbados.

Amid jitters after last month's bomb attacks on London, Mr Blair's media chief David Hill wrote to media last month asking them not to report Mr Blair's destination for security reasons.

But the mystery unravelled after the prime minister accepted an invitation from the Barbados Legion to an event on Sunday marking the end of World War Two and the contribution made by the people of Barbados.

"As this was a public event, his protection team accept the location of his holiday will be reported," said a spokeswoman.

British media had broadly observed Mr Hill's plea - the first such request from the prime minister's Downing Street office.

But at the same time newspapers ridiculed and criticised the decision to shroud the Blairs' holiday destination in secrecy, noting that even US President George W. Bush has made no attempt to disguise a summer stay at his Texas ranch.

"Jitters about Mr Blair's whereabouts are all to do with how it looks that he is sunning himself while we sweat through the threat in London, and hardly anything to do with security," columnist Alice Miles wrote in The Times last week.

As London's Madame Tussauds dressed their Blair waxwork in a Hawaiian shirt and put a white knotted handkerchief on his head, some media dropped heavy hints about the location.

Tabloid newspapers published photographs of beachwear-clad Blair and Cherie on a sun-drenched boat in sparkling blue water, but stopped short of naming the exact spot.

Usually in August, British media lampoon the leader of the centre-left Labour party for staying with rich friends like singer Cliff Richard or for cosying up to unlikely political partners such as Italy's Silvio Berlusconi.

But this year's silence has incensed some critics even more. "So why this farce?" asked Peter Cole, journalism professor at Sheffield University in the Independent on Sunday newspaper.