Talk is cheap, but debate is essential

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Let's lay one piece of mythology to rest from the outset. There has been much talk in various articles over the past few days of some sort of insurrection against the Prime Minister within the Parliamentary Labour Party. Some articles have even talked about a fabled " stalking horse" candidate emerging to challenge the Blair authority directly. There is in fact no truth in any of them. Indeed, I heard a lot of talk and ironic ribaldry about stalking horses in the division lobbies. A handful of mavericks - probably even less than a handful - may have been muttering away in the Commons Tea Room, but that is the sum total of any alleged "rebellion".

That does not of course mean that there isn't genuine and sometimes intense debate going on, within the parliamentary party and within the wider party too, about the issues facing the Government. It wouldn't be the Labour Party (new or old) if that weren't the case. Robust discussion - sometimes even dissent or criticism - is part of the stuff of democracy, and if someone voices a distinctive opinion on a particular issue, that should not automatically be assumed to signal an assault on the whole direction of Government.

There is, for example, genuine concern among many parliamentary colleagues about the possibility that we might get pulled into an invasion of Iraq, without broad international consent. I share that concern. Everyone, on all sides of British politics, recognises the threat that is posed, both internationally and to his own people, by Saddam Hussein. When Jack Straw says we mustn't let him bully his way through the world, there will be broad agreement. But how best to counter that threat: that is the question. Should it be by intensifying the pressure so that weapons inspectors are reinstated; or by going back to the United Nations for a decision, or by following decisions taken by America?

This is where we ought to be engaging in debate. In the immediate aftermath of 11 September and into the subsequent action in Afghanistan, the Government rightly went back to the House of Commons several times, to allow voices to be heard, to ensure that different viewpoints were aired, and to establish beyond any doubt where the overwhelming sentiment of the House lay. That process hasn't yet happened in relation to Iraq, and I hope it will, before any irrevocable decisions are made.

The welter of daily headlines, of course, encompasses a far wider agenda than just the debate over what may be happening over Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. When someone famously asked Harold Macmillan, years ago, what the most difficult thing was for a Government, he said: "Events, dear boy, events." So it is with the Government now. The Post Office succeeds miraculously in turning a £600 million profit into an equivalent loss, threatening thousands of jobs and subpost offices. I'm particularly alarmed at what that will mean for us in London. The postal regulator piles on the misery by demanding instant competition in the most profitable bits of what the Post Office does.

Sorting out the mess of Railtrack and the railway system is proving to be stubbornly intractable. People's fear of crime, and distress at the antisocial behaviour that turns their local neighbourhoods into environmental dumping grounds, are palpable. The investment of huge amounts of additional money into the Health Service takes an achingly long time to produce results on the ground. And here in London we wait for puffs of white smoke from the FA to see if it has managed to put the finance together for any chance of a new national stadium in the capital.

Most of these issues land up, in some shape or form, in the Government's lap. They have to be dealt with, and sometimes there are simply no easy answers. That is part of the inevitable process of Government, and ministers have to develop thick skins to survive. (I certainly found this out the hard way for myself.) But they should hold fast to two thoughts as they do so.

The first is that there have been genuine and lasting achievements from the past five years of government: rising levels of literacy and numeracy; substantial reductions in child poverty and youth unemployment; improved standards of living for pensioners; reductions in overall crime levels; the establishment of a national minimum wage; and many more.

The second is that the electorate will ultimately judge this second term of government not by the passing headlines about "events" but by the actual achievement of change on the ground; and that will be especially true about the state of our public services. This will be the battleground of the next three to four years in British politics. Even the Tories have belatedly woken up to the fact, although they still don't seem to be making a very good fist of effective opposition. There is considerable evidence that the focus in the first few years on education is now paying dividends in improving standards, although no one must take their eye off the ball. And the quality of many of our inner-city schools here in London is still nowhere near what it ought to be.

But it will largely be whether there is real felt improvement in people's experience of the health and transport services, and their fear of crime, that will determine whether this further period of government has been a success or not. It will also determine whether that historic second Labour victory at the polls is turned into an even more historic third.

I sense that the Government realises this. There is extra investment going in, and I suspect we'll see more of this in the forthcoming Budget and Spending Review. There is a struggle to identify new ways in which public services can be delivered, so that they can be improved. Sometimes it seems as if this is happening in an unfocused way, but it is important that the attempt is made. And in the course of the work that is done to improve services, and to tackle the onward march of "events", there will properly be debate and discussion and sometimes dissent about individual decisions and actions. But the broad direction is clear, and will receive the unstinting support of the parliamentary party and of the party across the country. Stalking horses should stay in their stables.