Mr Brown’s appeal for Tory votes

He faces no serious critics within his party. He is riding high in the polls: the latest gives Labour an eight-point lead. Yet his purpose today was firmly focused on the challenge of the next election - whether it comes this autumn or later - and in particular on shoring up Labour's middle-class vote.

Already Mr Brown has won over a clutch of Conservative defectors; today he made an open appeal to Tory voters. His keynote themes were aspiration and responsibility. He championed patriotism and the British way of life. He emphasised tough action on crime - against drugs, gangs and guns - as well as a youth centre in every town. But the central message, as before, was that he stands for change. The inevitable subtext is that, despite having been Chancellor for 10 years, he is not really responsible for any of those years' failures - hence his hint at a reversal of Tony Blair's drink-licensing reforms.

Certainly Mr Brown's style is very different from that of his predecessor: today's low-key setting marked a clear break from the thumping music and razzmatazz of Tony Blair's conference extravaganzas. But the vision for Britain that he set out today, where "everyone should rise as far as their talents can take them", is hardly new - or controversial. Indeed it is hard to imagine anyone disagreeing with it. Thus inevitably, the substance was rather less impressive than the rhetoric. Neither his promise of onetoone tuition for 300,000 children in English or of guaranteed university funding for 16-year-olds from low-income backgrounds will appeal much to middleclass voters. His pledge of five hours a week of sport in all schools is likely to remain a distant goal.

The reaction to the speech will in part shape Mr Brown's decision on whether to dash for an election this autumn or whether to wait. In favour of an autumn poll, he can argue he has proved himself and now deserves a mandate of his own. It would also avoid any nasty economic fallout from this summer's credit crunch. And victory now could snooker an ill-prepared Conservative Party. Yet an October election is also supremely risky. Labour's majority of 69 is perfectly workable: Mr Brown could achieve a lot in another two years. Meanwhile, Labour's local organisation is still weak. And the British electorate tends to punish those politicians seen to be arrogant in playing with conventional election timing.

To win over middle-class voters, especially in the South-East, he is going need to set out a clearer set of reforms than he did today - on schools, the NHS and criminal justice. Today's speech focused especially on children and education: but Mr Brown was the second most powerful man in a government that left poor standards in London's schools little changed after a decade. No one expected a detailed programme this afternoon; Mr Brown will hope simply to have struck an inclusive and reassuring tone. But as election jitters sharpen expectations, Mr Brown cannot put off much longer unveiling the programme that explains how he will achieve what Mr Blair failed to.