It can feel like the only important political event of the next six months is the long, enervating wait for the Blair-Brown transition, but we may come to see this period as being much more than an extended hiatus. For the Prime Minister, this period, and, especially, the major policy review launched last autumn, offers an opportunity for renewal, a bridge between the progress of the last 10 years and the possibilities for the next.
But whatever Tony Blair tries to achieve, there will be those in his party convinced that the best way to build the future is to create distance from the past. Tony Blair has dominated British politics for 12 years and a Prime Minister serving out his voluntary notice is unprecedented. John Yates's investigation and David Cameron's persistent poll lead are a distraction, but Downing Street staff still believe they can shape the manner of his departure.
The infamous leaked memo with its vision of Blair 'leaving the stage with the crowd wanting more' caused hilarity, but many of its suggestions, such as the high-profile regional speeches, have been enacted. These innovations will continue, but the key is whether the PM is able to make progress on the major issues which dominated his holiday reading: from Northern Ireland and Iraq to domestic issues such as health and education.
Yet despite this bulging in-tray, Blair has returned from holiday with another priority. After the failed coup of last September, I was charged with developing a plan for a fundamental policy review to be overseen jointly by Downing Street and the Treasury. The goal was not to impose a Blair legacy but to create the space for the kind of long-term strategic overview that most large organisations embark on every few years.
The rationale was confirmed at the first cabinet discussion; minister after minister talked about how refreshing it was to have a few hours away from the maw of day-to-day government to think about the challenges of the coming decades. This enthusiasm has driven the review forward. It will grasp some tough nettles, envisaging a radically reformed central state - smaller, more strategic, less controlling, focused more on the causes of poverty, ignorance and sickness than the Sisyphean struggle to ameliorate their consequences.
Ideas are being explored in areas ranging from police accountability to more radical steps to reduce carbon emissions. For Labour MPs who focus on the ends of politics, the review has radical promise; for those who hold fast to current means, it may confirm their worst fears about New Labour's political recklessness.
What's more, the government looks as though it will at long last understand that proper public engagement means taking risks. Next week will see a seminar at Number 10 to agree the issues to be given to a high-profile citizens' forum. The forum will involve a representative sample of citizens looking in depth and in public at real policy dilemmas; such as whether patients who are willing to change their lifestyle to improve the prospects of treatment should get priority, or what safeguards citizens need to allow government better to share personal information in the pursuit of more joined-up services. The forum may come to some controversial conclusions, but it will also pave the way for how policy has to be made in the future.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister has that bulging in-tray to deal with. The most tractable issue may be Northern Ireland. If the government is able to restore devolved power to the Assembly on the basis of genuine agreement from Paisley and Adams (imagine how ludicrous those last words would have seemed just five years ago), it would be a remarkable achievement.
The tragedy of Iraq has overshadowed the second half of Tony Blair's premiership. Hope still exists that by the time he leaves, there will be progress in reducing the day-to-day violence and strengthening the capacity of the Iraqi government. Even more important in the long term, Blair's pre-Christmas visit to the Middle East has contributed to some small and fragile indications of progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are few who hold out much hope here, fewer still ready to give Blair credit if progress is made, but that will not stop him trying. Nor, I suspect, will his efforts cease when he leaves office.
Work will continue, too, on the other major international issues of Africa, climate change and trade. Here, history is likely to be kinder to Tony Blair, recalling our country's standing in 1997 and observing that the UK has consistently punched above its weight.
On public services, the Home Office-dominated legislative programme will maintain the profile of John Reid. With many more academies and the new trust schools in the pipeline, the debate about school structure and governance, so controversial in the past, seems to have moved on. But it is the NHS that is causing by far the greatest concern to Labour MPs. However much ministers point to improved services and outcomes, it is hospital deficits and closures that will dominate local headlines in the run-up to May's council elections.
The task for Blair and an equally determined Patricia Hewitt is twofold: to ensure that key targets such as the 18-week waiting-list pledge stay on track, and to convince their party and the public that the pain (the Whitehall euphemism is 'turbulence') will eventually pay off with better services.
No one doubts the impact on Blair's reputation of the police investigation into 'cash for honours'. Number 10 has no choice but to co-operate with the inquiry, but the challenge for Blair is whether he can channel public concern about ethics in public life into the momentum for democratic reform. The window of opportunity for both party funding and Lords reform is small. On the former, some in the Labour party are presenting a false choice between the status quo and breaking up the trade union relationship, while on the latter, Jack Straw's proposals face many critics whose only weakness is that they have no better nor more realistic plans than his. If Blair is able to move these issues forward and Brown indicates a willingness to see them through, they will be doing our democracy a great service.
Blair's final challenge may be the May elections. If the outcome is disastrous for Labour, particularly if the SNP is seen to win a mandate for independence, his decision to stay on until the summer could be seen as a misjudgment to rival Jim Callaghan's 1978 rendition of 'Waiting at the church'.
This will depend on many things, not least the campaigning strategy of the Conservatives, Lib Dems and Nationalists, but Labour has its own choice to make. Blairites are fond of reminding people of the fate of Al Gore when he decided to disavow the Clinton record. Anyone with a political imagination could as easily write a story of the success of the New Labour project as focus on its disappointments and current tribulations.
The language of betrayal has always had a powerful resonance for those on the left; whether it would prove attractive to the electorate is another matter.
· After stepping down as Tony Blair's chief adviser on political strategy, Matthew Taylor is now chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts. He is writing in a personal capacity
Andrew Rawnsley is away