Last time the British electorate was asked to vote Labour, the prime minister said that there were no plans for a rise in National Insurance. University top-up fees were ruled out in the party’s manifesto and there was no mention of foundation hospitals.

Yet all three fundamental changes came to pass, catching not only the electorate by surprise but also many of the party’s backbenchers.

Whitehall insiders say that this time is no different. Behind Tony Blair’s election pledges lurks a hidden, more radical programme.

It will form the bedrock of his last term and will involve plenty of “hard choices” — Blairspeak for taxes and controversy. Dominating this agenda are his “legacy issues”: the four seemingly intractable problems of poor pensions provision, inequitable local government taxation, falling energy supply and traffic congestion.

Blair will expend whatever political capital he has left pushing through change in each of these areas before bowing out ahead of the next election. This is what is expected:

Pensions

People are saving an estimated £30 billion too little for retirement while living longer. The government has asked Adair Turner, a senior investment banker and former CBI president who is friendly to new Labour, to come up with a solution.

Last October, after a “pensions dinner” with top civil servants at the Treasury and the Department for Work and Pensions, Turner said in an interim report that the problem could be solved only through a mixture of higher taxes, later retirement ages and new incentives to save.

He is now deciding on the balance between the three. In City seminars he has indicated that a tax hike of more than £17 billion, an increase in average retirement age from 62 to 66 and a 30% increase in saving, promoted by Treasury-funded tax incentives, are all needed to solve the crisis. Ministers insist that they do not yet know what he will recommend but Whitehall is already studying how an extra tax might be raised.

An increase in National Insurance contributions for higher rate taxpayers is being considered in detail.

Yesterday a spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said that the government was studying plans for a “residency-based” state pension paid in full to all citizens regardless of their employment history — which could cost billions.

The department is also about to launch a consultation on improving payments to those wishing to opt out of the current state system — a move that could cost £3 billion. Pension reform is the one “legacy issue” that could upset the re-established Blair-Brown partnership. Brown favours state help targeted at the poor, while Blair wants a more universal system with more private sector involvement. If they cannot agree, could this be the trigger for the revolt that brings Blair down?

Nuclear power

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