THOUGH I have lived overseas for a decade or more I’m still surprised by how oddly unfamiliar my native land can seem. Passing through the UK only periodically puts you gravely out of touch with the great pressing issues of cultural significance that seem to grip the nation. I’ve spent much time, for example, in the past day or two trying to decide where I stand in the searing debate about whether one should be allowed to drive cars at breakneck speed for the purpose of television entertainment.

But nothing is so familiar and yet so puzzling to the semi-exiled as the rituals of British political life. Labour’s annual conference this year projects the same air of governing confidence that it has done for a decade, but underneath there’s nothing but uncertainty. It’s of special interest outside Britain because it offers the first really intensive look at the transition from the Blair era to what everyone assumes will be the Brown era. Although much of the attention focuses on the approach of a Brown government to terrorism and relations with America and Europe, there’s interest, too, in what Mr Brown will mean for Britain’s broader political and economic orientation.

Watching him in Manchester yesterday grapple with the task of trying to assert continuity while at the same time insisting on his novelty was painful at times. His aides were eager to emphasise how much he aims to identify with Middle England and how keen he is to demonstrate that he has a warm personal side. But, even to an outsider such as me, it was clear this is not an easy task. As you follow Mr Brown’s rather recondite speaking style, you get the impression he’d connect better with Middle Earth than Middle England. As for the personal touch, I’m not sure that stuff about his Scottish presbyterian father does the trick for the masses. He would be better off, I suspect, sticking to the real issues that animate most of the country.

Labour’s basic economic message is a strong one still. The UK has enjoyed the longest period of continuous economic growth since the Middle Ages, or so it seems. It has not been spectacular but it has been stable — a welcome departure from the volatility of the previous 25 years. But it is always worth reminding that the centrepiece of that success — the transfer of monetary policy powers to the Bank of England — was put in place in Labour’s very first week in office. Much of the economic stability enjoyed since then owes more to the Bank than to Labour.

The efforts Labour has made to ready the British economy for the onslaught of international competition have been much less productive — no real improvement in trend productivity growth, most obviously.

In the public sector, the real test of a government’s performance, the picture is even worse. Labour’s first four years were a barely disguised calamity. Much-needed reforms begun under the Conservatives to improve performance and efficiency in healthcare and education were reversed. As spending increased, fiscal difficulties were averted only because of a surge in bubble-era tax revenues.

It was only in the second half of his premiership that Mr Blair began to recognise the need for serious economic reform in public services — in health and education especially.

Now, at a time when all the evidence suggests Britain needs more reform to coax more choice and market discipline into the great bureaucracies, Mr Brown promises — what? Decentralisation seems to be his main offer. I know this tends to provoke guffaws from those who know him and say that power-sharing to Gordon is like driving within the speed limit to Jeremy Clarkson, but even if we take him at his word it is not clear how devolving power in the public services to local bureaucrats is going to produce real efficiencies.

Much more troublingly there was little in what Mr Brown said that gives real hope for the needed provision of more genuine choice in the NHS or education. I know he was speaking to a Labour audience, most of whom still hanker after the golden days of the 1970s. But that’s where he needs to start.

I couldn’t help but notice, either, that while this debate — or lack of it — has been going on in Britain, elsewhere in Europe, the first, glacial signs of recognition that reform is needed have begun to appear.

Germany is at least trying to deal with the labour and fiscal challenges. Last week Swedish voters elected a centre-right government committed to breathing market air into a bloated public sector. In France, Nikolas Sarkozy, the closest France may get to a free-market leader, is well placed to win next year’s presidential election.

Britain is in better shape than most of the European Union, for sure. But the paradox of this economic stability may come to haunt us. Economic malaise in Europe has triggered a sense of crisis. Britain’s relative economic success has not produced the same hunger for reform. But the longer it is put off, the worse it will be for Britain.

gerard.baker@thetimes.co.uk

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