Sunny spells mixed with cloudy periods for Blair as he sets out election stall at Brighton

Lord (Melvin) Bragg was in wonderment at the weather. One minute brilliant sunshine, or the hint of autumn beauty, the next the darkness of the monsoon. As so often during the political conference season in Britain, conditions by the seaside seemed to reflect the prevailing political climate. Dark, foreboding clouds, and the first Tory lead in the opinion polls for eight years, attended Labour's convergence on Brighton last weekend.

The skies cleared as Mr Blair sweated through his big speech on Tuesday - instantly adjudged the best Lord Callaghan had heard in all his years of conference-going. Yet the atmosphere remained troubled and threatening and 20 hours later torrential rain poured down on the Brighton Centre as the delegates inside delivered Mr Blair's first conference defeat since becoming Prime Minister.

On Tuesday, Contrite Tone had told them he was listening - that, on the 75p pension increase, he and Gordon had got the message. Having cheered him to the rafters, the delegates decided next day he wasn't listening enough, and defied the platform to demand the restoration of the link between average earnings and pensions.

The issue brought fresh talk of tension between Mr Blair and his Chancellor. And the British press made much of the backstage scene - long hours of negotiations with trade union leaders in smoke-filled rooms, talk of composite motions and the search for a last-minute deal, all so reminiscent of Old Labour.

Nor was the newly energised role of the unions the only hint that Mr Blair's Labour Party was no longer quite so "new". If Mr Blair made fleeting reference to New Labour on Tuesday, Mr Brown made none at all 24 hours before as he repeatedly stressed his allegiance to "Labour values"

Those values were evident in the instinct of conference - almost class-warlike in antipathy to the farmers and hauliers who had brought Britain to the brink during the oil blockade. Distinctly traditional Labour, too, in the preference for spending and investment over tax cuts.

In terms of what touched the right buttons with the delegates - and in terms of what Mr Blair himself had to offer - there was little sign here of the much-vaunted Third Way.

True, Mr Blair did not signal the end of his "big tent" project. He probably tested the patience of delegates by praising the deal he made with the Conservatives to get rid of most of the hereditary peers; as with his lament for the One Nation Tories no longer comfortable in Mr Hague's party.

Nor did he signal the end of Labour's tax-cutting ambitions: "We will cut tax for people as we can but we will do it in a way that lasts not at the expense of the very stability and investment on which the wealth and security of millions of families depend."

However, with Labour's plans now stretching well into the decade, it is hard to see how they can long sustain the myth of a low-taxing, high-spending administration. It is hard, certainly, to think voters would believe promised Tory tax cuts would spell the end of public services and civilisation as they know it, yet think to have them under Labour.

This is the battleground Mr Blair has staked out for the general election, fashioning a lethal weapon which could spell political death for Mr Hague. On Tuesday, Mr Blair spelt out in lurid detail what the Tory party's alleged £16 billion sterling spending cuts would mean: "20,000 doctors . . . cut; 20,000 prison officers . . . cut; 40,000 nurses . . . cut; 40,000 teachers . . . cut; 40,000 police officers . . . cut under the Tory cuts guarantee".

And he put the Conservative Party on notice: "In every constituency, in every part of this country, we will force every Tory candidate to say where the cuts will fall."

In truth, of course, the Tories have not published their detailed expenditure proposals and Mr Blair's gambit is but a guess at what they might do. But as commentator Bruce Anderson writes in this week's Spectator magazine, Mr Blair's intention is to trap the Tories in a tax and spend "killing ground" - leaving Mr Hague and Michael Portillo, with the task both of rebutting the assumption that spending alone is the solution to social problems and persuading voters it is safe to assume a humane Tory party will better manage the public services.

So, after Brighton and ahead of Bournemouth, it is still Mr Hague who faces the tallest order. Labour this week were uneasy and uncertain about their sudden poll collapse. Yet ministers, MPs and delegates alike appeared to think it a "wake-up call" rather than a sudden intimation of immediate mortality. Certainly none of those canvassed believed Mr Hague a prime-minister-in-waiting. His task in Bournemouth is to find that still-elusive connection with the British public.