The Week in Politics: Blair believes feelgood factor will kick in soon

Amid the gloom in Downing Street in recent weeks, Tony Blair has discovered a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. He has become convinced that, by the end of this year, people will look at public services and think: "Things really are getting better."

Philip Gould, his irrepressible pollster, has persuaded the Prime Minister that people's everyday experiences of education and health will reach such a critical mass that they supersede their gripes about public services in general. At first glance, this seems optimistic. As another Blair adviser put it: "The voters don't thank us. They take for granted the economic stability we have delivered, but we don't get any benefit from it."

If Mr Blair is right, that may be about to change. He has become exercised about what he calls the "paradox of first-hand satisfaction and second-hand scepticism". As one aide said: "They can see things around them are improving but they still think the country is going to the dogs." According to the pollsters Mori, while people do not think the NHS is failing them personally, they believe it is failing Britain and expect it to get worse. When they visit their GP or hospital, they do not regard this as "the NHS". Similarly, there is a big difference between how people think their own neighbourhood and other areas are policed.

The Cabinet discussed this conundrum in a political strategy session on Thursday, and resolved to launch a communications drive about improving school results, waiting lists, crime levels and councils' performance. This will not be easy, and I suspect people will be more inclined to believe local service providers than ministers blowing their own trumpets.

There is frustration in Downing Street that the improving facts about services are distorted by the media prism and that newspapers are not interested in "good news" stories. "The media is living in a parallel universe," moaned one Blair adviser. "In the real world, people are noticing that things are improving."

In a speech on Thursday, Mr Blair appealed to the voters to give the Government more time to show that its combination of extra money and reform was working. I am not sure this message will be warmly received. Labour's plea for extra time worked at the 2001 general election but the trick is unlikely to work a second time.

That is why Mr Blair will be anxious to see the breakthrough predicted by Mr Gould come true. The next election is likely to be held in May or June next year. Mr Blair is unlikely to wait until 2006: he does not want to find himself boxed in, with no room for manoeuvre, as John Major was in 1997. The second half of 2005 is all but ruled out because Britain will hold the rotating presidency of the European Union then.

So a developing "feelgood factor" on public services by the end of this year would give Labour a huge fillip as it prepared to seek a third term. It would also deliver a blow to Michael Howard, who argued in a speech on Monday that Labour's approach to public services had failed. His own strategy is based on the voters believing this, as they might then buy the Tory prescription of wider choice on health and education.

A turnaround in opinion on services might also enable Mr Blair to win back - at least in part - the trust he lost over the Iraq war. If people felt he had made some progress on his central domestic mission, they would be less likely to evict him from No 10. Mr Blair believes that the centre of political gravity lies on the centre-left and that there is no desire for a return to Thatcherism. Mr Howard has implicitly acknowledged this by promising to lead his party "from the centre" and striking a moderate tone in recent days on Europe and gay rights.

The Prime Minister's wafer-thin Commons victory on university tuition fees received less attention than it deserved because it was followed by the Hutton report. Mr Blair has admitted that he must consult over policies before they are set in stone. But he has rejected advice from John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, to take his foot off the reform accelerator. That means more reforms but does not mean rushing into them willy-nilly.

On his summer holiday last year, Mr Blair concluded that he needed to "get the party behind the project". A perceptive analysis by Pat McFadden, his director of political operations, predicted a backlash among Labour MPs against the Government's "policy first, explain later" approach. But it was too late to stop the rebellions over foundation hospitals and tuition fees. In future, "political management" - to use New Labour's jargon - will be integral to the policy process, not bolted on as an afterthought.

There remain plenty of clouds on Mr Blair's horizon. He knows the local and European elections in June will offer the voters a chance to kick him up the backside without kicking him out. A difficult public spending negotiation looms before a new three-year plan is agreed in July. This will write key elements of Labour's election manifesto and define the central battleground as public services. For all his continuing problems over Iraq, Mr Blair can take some comfort from the fact that the election will be decided by events closer to home.

a.grice@independent.co.uk