Andrew Grice: The Week In Politics

At 8.30am on Wednesday, Tony Blair breezed into a Downing Street seminar about the problems of young single mothers. His aides wanted him to spend his time preparing for his final meeting with George Bush. But he insisted on hearing a progress report on a scheme under which young mothers-to-be get intensive help from midwives and health visitors in an attempt to stop their babies turning into problem children.

As I watched Mr Blair ask lots of questions, I asked myself how he could still summon up the energy when he knew that Gordon Brown would soon be crowned Prime Minister. I wondered what was going through Mr Blair's mind. He looked a bit rueful, as if he didn't really want his premiership to end. To his credit, he seemed fully engaged, as if nothing had changed.

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But it has. The seminar was linked to the publication of two policy reports, on the family and the role of the state, part of the Cabinet policy review which he hopes will entrench his legacy. But the two documents received no coverage; the media is more interested in what Mr Brown has to say right now. There are few takers in the media for Mr Blair's farewell tour overseas. When Mr Brown travels abroad, it will be a sell-out.

Mr Blair's slow departure will fail to achieve what one aide wanted in that infamous leaked memo, saying: "He needs to go with the crowds wanting more." The way to ensure that was to announce his departure during his brilliant farewell speech to the Labour conference in Manchester last autumn. But he still wanted more, and Mr Brown's supporters had just attempted a coup against him.

Mr Blair will keep going right to the finishing line, even if few people are watching. There will probably be more seminars, and speeches about his health and education reforms. Of course, Mr Brown's agenda is much more interesting. Even if many of the subjects he talks about are the same, there are some important differences. In his speech on Thursday, he placed "affordable housing" alongside the NHS and education as his priorities.

Housing has been a Cinderella issue under the Blair Government. This is a surprise, since Mr Blair, for all the cynicism about his focus groups, has normally been attuned to the issues that matter to people - whether crime, antisocial behaviour or immigration.

The lack of affordable housing for young people somehow slipped off the radar. Why? Perhaps the Government was happy for people to enjoy the "feelgood factor" from soaring house prices. Yet common sense would have told Labour politicians that millions of middle-class voters may have done very nicely out of the house price boom but were fearful that their children will struggle to get a toe on the housing ladder.

Now, suddenly, the political classes are waking up to the issue. Mr Brown promises us five "eco" towns. He hints that he doesn't share Mr Blair's laissez faire approach to the gap between rich and poor, a problem exacerbated by the gulf between the housing "haves" and "have nots".

The six candidates in the race for Labour's deputy leadership agree that "something must be done" about the looming housing crisis and the need to improve social mobility. There are growing Labour demands for a return to council house building. For Mr Blair, that smacked too much of Old Labour. But it could happen under Mr Brown, who is looking at giving local authorities more freedom as he tries to show he is not a "control freak". Younger ministers are alive to the issue, too. Liam Byrne, a Home Office minister and an early "Blairite for Brown", warns his colleagues: "Housing is the new NHS." In other words, it could be the big issue at the next general election.

Mr Byrne is right. The Tories, slowly, are getting the message too. David Cameron is trying to persuade Tory traditionalists to drop their long-standing opposition to housebuilding in the green belt.

David Willetts, the shadow Education Secretary, is trying to persuade Mr Cameron to make his "big idea" the anxiety among the "baby boomers" generation born after the Second World War that their children will never be able to buy their own homes. "The danger is that the baby boomers are pulling up the ladder of opportunity behind them," Mr Willetts told me yesterday.

The Tory leader will stick to his theme of "social responsibility". But it may well be widened to include the housing problem. Mr Willetts wants the Tories to say that the baby boomers have a social responsibility to help the young generation get a good education, decent pensions and a start on the property ladder. He is on to something: there are an estimated 7.6 million baby boomers. They vote in large numbers and will reach the peak of their influence at the next election.

So the party which gets there first with serious policies to open up the housing ladder will reap the benefit. Forget Bill Clinton's famous mantra about the economy; It's housing, stupid.

a.grice@independent.co.uk