The Blair camp, sensibly, did not overreact yesterday to Mr Clarke’s criticisms. The former Home Secretary is still liked and seen as an ally by most in No 10, even if his former Cabinet colleagues think Mr Clarke ill-advised to have expressed his understandable frustrations about the behaviour of John Reid, his successor.

The Blair performance has changed over the years. There is less of the eager enthusiasm so susceptible to satire by the likes of Rory Bremner. Now, the tone is more of wistful experience. Mr Blair is the battle-scarred veteran, giving warning of the pitfalls that lie in the way of further reform.

There is an increasing contrast between Mr Blair’s aims and the political realities surrounding him.

At a breakfast meeting yesterday of Progress, the Blairite ginger group, his theme was renewal — echoing, without attribution, the Brownite call. What matters, it is suggested, is the battle of ideas. An electioneering strategy without ideas is, in the Blair view, not enough; victory only comes from ideas with strategy. Hence, the only way that Labour can lose the next election is by not generating fresh ideas and by succumbing to the siren calls to “take a breather from new Labour”.

He emphasises the willingness to take long-term decisions, as on pensions and, quite near in the future, on civil nuclear power. He contrasts this with the alleged immobility of the Major Government in the mid-1990s in face of its weakening political position: in part, unfairly, since, for better or worse, the Tories pressed ahead with rail privatisation and had a radical plan for pensions.

At present, Mr Blair is eager to show that he is busy: with meetings here, speeches there. After his three-part series of speeches on international relations in the spring, there is now the “our nation’s future” series on domestic policy.

This started last Friday with criminal justice. Another speech on the role of the State, focused on health, is planned before the holidays.

This is all very well, but, as Mr Blair’s advisers concede, there is the problem of who is listening. This is partly the understandable reaction along the lines of “if you haven’t got it right for nine years, why should we believe you have got it right now?” The Blair brand is familiar and no longer fresh. Mr Blair can no longer dominate the public debate, as the focus shifts to what Gordon Brown will do, and what David Cameron might do. Their speeches and proposals are now getting as much, if not more, political and media attention than Mr Blair’s. This shift is already noticeable in Whitehall as senior civil servants start speculating about “what Gordon will be like”.

Mr Blair’s immediate problem is his distance from many Labour MPs and activists on public service reform — notably persuading them that people want choice on health and schools, as in every other walk of life. “Each generation of progressive politicians faces the betrayal myth; they have let us down.” Reasonably enough, he points to the acceptance by most now of earlier changes such as university tuition fees (once described as his “poll tax”) and foundation hospitals (all but one of which are in surplus).

Many Labour supporters now criticise, rather than celebrate, central parts of Mr Blair’s record.

Mr Blair admits that the response to his programme is ambivalent. “If you ask Labour Party activists are they proud of the minimum wage, they will say yes,” he says. “But if you ask are they proud of being able to choose where they get treated, the answer is less certain. We have got a serious problem with activists over new Labour. They need to like not just the Labour part but also the new part.”

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