Many in his party would like to take refuge in the Old Labour ghetto, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
Tony Blair is in bad shape. But is his condition terminal? Are we, as Newsweek's cover story suggests, entering the twilight years of the New Labour project?
Along with the drink, this is the question that will fuel late-night conversations around the bars and restaurants of Labour's Bournemouth conference centre next week. But is it the right question?
As the Hutton inquiry drew towards its dramatic conclusion on Thursday, with headline-grabbing charges of government duplicity and ministerial lying over the handling of Dr David Kelly, serious political commentators here were beginning to fashion somewhat different, and even less flattering, questions about a Prime Minister who until so recently seemed impregnable.
Outside the political classes does anybody much care? Even assuming he survives and wins a third Labour term, to what end? What is Mr Blair for? Or, as the headline above Peter Riddell's article in the London Times on Thursday put it: "If Tony Blair didn't exist, would we invent him?"
Relatively sanguine and amazingly confident as they still are, the inhabitants of No 10 will surely have been startled by the respected Mr Riddell's warning that Mr Blair risks emulating Mr John Major and finding himself, in the mocking words of Mr (now Lord) Norman Lamont, "in office but not in power". Nor can suggestions that New Labour has lost its way and Mr Blair his sense of purpose be dismissed as pre-conference posturing by commentators paid to stir dissent.
From former minister Mr Alan Milburn came apparent acknowledgment of the need for "renewal", and not just about presentation but also about style, substance and policy.
Playing back Mr Blair's assertion at last year's conference that Labour was best when at its boldest, Mr Milburn asserted: "Boldness is a means, not an end. There must be a purpose to it."
And after six years of Blairite government, the former health secretary concluded: "Faced with a tide of uncertainty, now more than ever Tony Blair has to spell out what the purpose of New Labour is."
Lest there be any questioning his loyalty, Mr Milburn implicitly dismissed the brooding ambitions of the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, insisting Mr Blair remained head and shoulders above anybody else in British politics, in or out of the cabinet.
However, it remained an open question whether Mr Blair's would join the governments of Attlee and Thatcher in really changing the political landscape.
And the Prime Minister's mission was clear: "Labour is in power to change things, not keep them the same. Transformation, not consolidation. Of course, people want competence, and most, when pressed, recognise that change takes time. But above all the public wants to know where we are taking the country."
Several problems suggest themselves with this. Many people will think six years quite long enough for a government (especially one with a whopping Commons majority, blessed also by a total lack of credible opposition) to have steered its course for the nation.
Moreover, they may suspect that it is Mr Milburn who is posturing on Mr Blair's behalf ahead of what promises to be the most strained conference of his leadership.
Within the Labour Party certainly there will be suspicion and distrust of Mr Milburn's pure-Blairite assertion that "we need to be both more Labour and more New Labour".
What, if anything, does this mean? What are the "values" and "vision" which the most ruthless and efficient spin machine in the history of British politics has so far failed to impart to the British people?
What is the means to a "fairer" society? How do they extend choice, in education and health, beyond those who could always afford it to those who cannot, other than by means of further tax rises and substantial redistribution?
Does the promised better dialogue between a mutually distrustful Labour leadership and party herald a radical shift to the left?
The answer to that appears to be an emphatic No. Even after the collapse of the Labour vote in last week's Brent East by-election, No 10 carefully translated "the need to listen" to a need to better explain.
Reaching for their favourite role model, Margaret Thatcher, Mr Blair's messengers have advised the new breed of militant union leaders that There Is No Alternative to Mr Blair's reforms allowing greater private-sector involvement in the running of Britain's still-struggling public services.
This was the barely coded message of Mr Milburn's Guardian piece yesterday. He was confident "the left's values are more relevant in today's world than the right's". However, this was "not to argue for a retreat into an Old Labour ghetto".
The problem facing Mr Blair is that many in his party would like to take refuge in that ghetto, and that many of his MPs fancy life would be more ideologically comfortable under Mr Brown.
This would seem patent nonsense. It is Mr Brown, after all, who preaches (if he no longer so faithfully practises) the economic policies of Prudence. And it is improbable that a Brown premiership would play overly fast-and-loose with the Middle Britain constituency on which Mr Blair built his election-winning coalition.
However, that will not stop the chattering and speculation, fuelled by the knowledge that Mr Blair intends to persist with policies like foundation hospitals and variable university tuition fees which are anathema to many Labourites, and, above all, by continuing hostility to Mr Blair's support for the Bush-led war in Iraq.
Last Wednesday marked the first anniversary of the publication of the British government's controversial Iraqi weapons dossier. The following day brought reports that the Iraq Survey Group has so far failed to uncover any weapons of mass destruction, laboratories to make them or systems to deliver them.
The war just won't go away, with each day bringing fresh evidence of the long and hazardous path ahead to successful reconstruction in that country.
Moreover - even allowing that elections turn on domestic performance rather than foreign policy - Mr Blair's attempt next week to refocus on the home agenda can only have limited success.
For still ahead, casting its dark shadow over autumn into winter, lies Lord Hutton's report, with all its potential to sweep away the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, and at least shake the walls of No 10.
"Things can only get better" was New Labour's theme song in 1997. But it is currently hard to see how and when things start getting seriously better for Mr Blair.
This may strike many as odd, since the betting must still be that Mr Blair will survive Hutton and go on to win the next election.
Yet back to that question: to what end?
The greatest indignity, surely, would be to win courtesy of massive public apathy and an all-time low turnout, in a contest with Iain Duncan Smith which one Labour expert yesterday characterised as "a choice between somebody the country doesn't trust and somebody the country doesn't want".