In semi-exile from his own government, Mr Brown is trying to forge a new consensus

A few at the Compass conference said they would vote Labour again if the Chancellor became leader of his party

We have not heard a great deal from Gordon Brown since the extraordinary events that took place before and after the Labour party conference. Within the space of a few weeks, Alan Milburn had returned to the Cabinet with responsibilities for the election campaign and Tony Blair had announced that he was planning to serve a full third term. Both developments were hardly in the interests of the Chancellor.

Mr Brown has responded to these dramatic changes by working even harder, immersing himself in policy for the short and longer term, making speeches and preparing for next month's pre-budget report. On one level he is as engaged as ever, at the centre of things. Yet on another he is in semi-exile from his own government, a position symbolised most vividly by his decision to tour the country at the next election rather than be based at Labour's campaign headquarters.

For the last two elections the Chancellor has chaired the daily press conferences and spent 18 hours a day at Westminster running the campaign. Now he will restrict his appearances in London to those days when the economy is the main political issue. When Mr Blair and other ministers highlight their latest policies for reforming the public services Mr Brown is more likely to be in Pontefract.

In the meantime the Chancellor's speeches focus on issues that grip him, addressing audiences that quite often extend well beyond Labour party members. Last Friday he spoke with Hilary Benn at a packed meeting in Scotland on international development. The following day he flew to London at dawn to address a conference organised by the left-of-centre Compass group where he was greeted as something of a political hero.

The weekend conference was organised mainly by disillusioned Blairites and was therefore a significant barometer of the mood within parts of New Labour. Quite a few of those who attended declared that they had joined the Labour party because of Tony Blair and had now left the Labour party because of Mr Blair. Others announced that they remained in the Labour party only because of Mr Brown. A few said they would vote Labour again if the Chancellor became leader of his party. No wonder Mr Brown got up early to attend.

Those who took part in the conference are not necessarily typical of Labour party members or former members across the country. Most polls suggest that activists continue to support Mr Blair as leader by quite a significant margin. Even so, one of the bizarre ironies of the war against Iraq is that Mr Blair has alienated a large proportion of those he first attracted - middle-class liberals, pluralists, with a keen sense of social justice - while he has retained the support of some instinctively loyal traditional Labour members who were not wholly at ease with his leadership in the first place.

In his speech to the conference Mr Brown highlighted two models for building for what he calls a progressive consensus. Revealingly he used the future tense throughout. "We will only build a progressive consensus if ...", implying that after more than seven years of a landslide Labour government, there is no such consensus yet.

The first model was based on the way Britain has led the way in reducing debt in developing countries, creating a new international consensus that counters the reactionary "do nothing" assumptions of the 1980s.

His second model was the gradual build up of support in Britain for an increase in taxes to pay for improvements in the NHS. Here is the sequence as he sees it: a government highlights a problem; gradually establishes a consensus that the problem has to be addressed; and finally moves towards a consensus for a progressive solution, the solution a left-of-centre government probably had in mind to begin with.

The newspapers have reported the familiar warning in his speech to Mr Blair and Mr Milburn about the limited role for markets in public services. A more interesting pointer to the future came when he urged local forums around the country to discuss the problems raised by child poverty. This could lead on to very interesting and politically sensitive terrain.

Let us follow the Brownite model. Currently he is at the first stage, highlighting the scale of the problem caused still by child poverty in spite of several successful government policies to help the poor. Next he seeks recognition across the country in those "local forums" that something more must be done. Perhaps he would then contemplate the final move, building a consensus towards a progressive solution that would challenge unavoidably the greatest taboo of the lot, the levels of taxation in Britain.

In the Treasury there is a painful awareness that their tax credits and other forms of targeting have not benefited some of the poorest. But Mr Brown is as alert to the electoral risks of overt redistribution through tax increases as Mr Blair. He is a long way from acting and perhaps never will, but in his speech he moved towards the first stage in his model for achieving a progressive consensus on this issue.

Mr Brown signalled also the need for a revival in local government and a more democratic House of Lords. Again I can hear some Blairites chortling, reflecting that it is the Treasury that keeps the ceiling on the freedom of local authorities. They chortle with some good cause, although for several years the Treasury has nurtured "earned local autonomy", a phrase that is partly a contradiction in terms but also hails a managed transition towards more local decision- making and accountability.

In Mr Brown's view voters are at least as politically active as ever, but tend to join single-issue pressure groups or other local organisations rather than political parties. In his semi-exile from the Blairite court he becomes more outward looking, as likely to be addressing non-Labour Party members in a Third World charity as battling over an internal policy document, although those battles will continue.

Mr Brown is the only Cabinet member who has a power base within his party, one that is fairly wide as last weekend's conference testified. This has two implications, one for Mr Brown and the other for Mr Blair. The Chancellor faces an expectations' problem. As he is cheered by disillusioned Blairites and those further to the left he will be portrayed as the "old Labour" conservative candidate by some Blairites and parts of the media. In his attempts to counter such taunts he risks alienating those on the left who regard him as the salvation of the Labour party. These are the dilemmas for someone who has been leader-in-waiting for nearly a decade.

I was struck also by the troubled restlessness of those who cheered Mr Brown at the weekend, giving him a standing ovation on a rainy Saturday morning. It is unusual to hold such a gathering close to a general election when parties tend to postpone their divisive introspections until after polling day. If Mr Blair were to attempt to move his Chancellor after the election he would split his fragile party in two. I do not believe he will do so.

s.richards@independent.co.uk