Steve Richards: After more than a decade, New Labour still has an unquenchable thirst for power

Brown followed without a hint of animosity. The psychiatrist would have been superfluous

With a hint of menace, some Conservative MPs are asking why their party is not doing better in the polls. They will find the answer to their question in the unlikely form of Labour's launch of its local election campaign yesterday.

At a time when apocalyptic headlines whirl around their supposedly tired heads, ministers delivered their messages with an awesomely choreographed discipline. After nine years in government, they still have a wilful hunger for power.

There had been a sweaty excitement at Westminster the morning before the launch. Finally, it seemed, the relationship between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had reached a fatal low, over irreconcilable divisions in relation to the reform of pensions. Even wisely understated political journalists were exclaiming that this was it, the moment of the ill-defined meltdown.

We looked to the following day's local election launch with a rare excitement, as if we had just got front seats for the latest Madonna concerts (well I did, being a fan). What a prospect, Blair and Brown answering questions at the height of their enmity. At one point the broadcasters were contemplating hiring a psychiatrist to analyse the exchanges.

Meanwhile, as a warm-up act, there was the prospect also of Tessa Jowell speaking at the launch. She does not speak very much these days. For us a joyful theatrical event was being laid on. For Labour it threatened to be another catastrophe, with damaging stories heading towards the front pages every time the main players opened their mouths.

Within hours everything had changed. On the afternoon of the day before the launch Brown gave a series of interviews in which he stressed that both he and Blair supported the principles behind the pensions reforms. Together they were also determined to agree about their affordability.

This was a limited compromise: we all agree about what to do if we can afford to do it. These words raise a thousand questions, but the interviews calmed the seething speculation. Suddenly the prospect of the launch was less enticing for journalists as a theatrical event. The event itself was ruthlessly stage-managed. There was no press conference. Instead speeches were delivered to party workers while the muted journalists looked on.

For once the journalists were reporters of a political event instead of the unelected key players. Inevitably this rare constraint has become a source of fleeting controversy.

As I write I am listening to a journalist on the BBC's World at One asking questions to other journalists about how awful it was that they could not ask questions to the politicians ... Now the BBC journalist is asking a politician why journalists could not ask questions to politicians.

When journalists are kept out of a story they tend to make their exclusion the story instead. They would have a case if Blair did not put himself up for more questions than any previous prime minister, to such an extent I sense sometimes that he is in the surreal position of spending all his time in an eternal press conference.

In this case, Labour acted with a necessarily brutal professionalism. It was not going to be diverted by questions, and therefore answers, about issues that could only cause more damage. For the media, the event was no longer a hot ticket, and became the equivalent of turning up expecting to see Madonna and getting Cilla Black on an off day. The broadcasters cancelled the psychiatrist.

But as far as Labour is concerned, the event worked. We are so used to viewing politics through the prism marked "jaded Blair", often we cannot see what is in front of our eyes. At yesterday's launch, Blair looked 10 years younger than his age. Was it only last week that he was in Australia? This was the third speech he had made since then.

With a youthful verve, extra-ordinary after nearly 12 years of wearying leadership, Blair put the powerful case for Labour in these elections, the better schools, the local policing initiatives, the Olympics and the public service reforms that reflect at least a lack of complacency, a desire to do better.

Brown followed without a hint of animosity. The psychiatrist would have been superfluous. He repeated the familiar case that the economy was performing fairly well (Brown put it more strongly, but if he does not do so no one else will).

Oddly, during her appearance Tessa Jowell looked 10 years younger as well, although arguably in the light of what she has been through, a psychiatrist might indeed be required to explain the rejuvenation.

Afterwards Blair gave interviews focusing on what Tony Benn used to call the issues rather than the personalities. He ranged widely and authoritatively on policies ranging from Northern Ireland to the level of the council tax. Wisely he did not give a quote that could be used in relation to his retirement plans. He came over well, as if he was in control of events rather than the other way around.

Regular readers of this column know I do not underestimate the explosive dynamic of the Blair/ Brown relationship. Probably readers know this only too well. Nor do I underestimate the capacity for despair within the Labour party. There is much gloom around at the moment, some of it justified. What is more Labour will be slaughtered in the local elections that were launched with such artful discipline.

Yet there should be no great surprise about a big defeat. This is what happens normally to long-serving governments in mid-term. Experts of the Beatles are asked repeatedly why it is that the band split up. The more interesting question is how the quartet managed to stay together for so long. Similarly, in relation to the Government we hear all the time how bad it is and how much worse it will get. Reports are written and broadcast on a daily basis analysing the causes of the apparent catastrophe.

The more interesting question is: how is the Government doing so well after such a long period of time? To place the question in the context of the local elections: Why has it taken so long for Labour to be hit badly in mid- term polls? Or to pose it in relation to the opening paragraph of this column: How is it that Labour is still ahead in the opinion polls? By this stage of the Conservatives' third term they were 20 points behind.

The answer to these rarely posed questions was in the substance of the message and the manner of the delivery at yesterday's launch. The new Conservative leader, David Cameron, leads his party with intelligent gusto. The reason he is not miles ahead in the polls is that he faces dauntingly formidable political opponents. The extraordinary and unwritten news story is that after more than a decade they are still formidable.

s.richards@independent.co.uk