Isn't it about time we found out who is in control of the country?

Before the 1997 election Tony Blair was asked a familiar but awkward question: "As Prime Minister, would you be willing to press the nuclear button?" Mr Blair responded with an unequivocal "Yes".

I do not cite this as an early example of Mr Blair's willingness to go to war. He had no choice but to answer without any sign of doubt. Labour had lost enough elections partly over its attachment to unilateral nuclear disarmament. If a new Labour government was to keep nuclear weapons, Mr Blair had to declare a willingness to use them.

Of more interest is that nightmarishly evocative metaphor about pressing the button. It conjures up an action of almost comical simplicity bringing about unthinkable consequences. But at least there would be consequences. A button would be pressed and something would happen. At the margins I suspect the metaphor explains why Mr Blair is, at the very least, at ease with military matters. I am not implying bizarrely that he is about to start a nuclear war. But the metaphor graphically illustrates that when it comes to war there is, for a British political leader, a uniquely straightforward line of command: a button is pressed and a nuclear weapon would wreak havoc.

What a blissful contrast to the fuzzy lines of command that are supposedly meant to be making Britain's public services function effectively. Last week I focused on the unfortunate position of Estelle Morris after the A-level results fiasco. She was attacked for doing too little, and yet when she acted, she was attacked for interfering with the independence of the agencies. She could not win. And what chutzpah from the chap who ran one of the agencies, Sir William Stubbs, who suddenly found the energy to appear on all media outlets last week to suggest Ms Morris had interfered with the independent inquiry. If only he had displayed the same energy when he was in charge of exams, or indeed in investigating the cock-up. Sir William's original inquiry was over in almost less time than it takes to sit an exam.

This is a characteristic of some of the hopeless organisations that run Britain. They suddenly discover a previously hidden flair when they are in trouble. I recall hearing many reports on the BBC's Today programme about the disgraceful state of the railways, ending with Mr Humphrys or Mr Naughtie stating that they had asked for an interview with Railtrack but no one was available. When the unlikely figure of Stephen Byers announced that Railtrack would be no more, the Today presenters could not move for offers of interviews. If only those executives had displayed the same energy attempting to save the railways as they had in trying to save their own skins.

There was another example of organisational madness in Britain last week when it was finally announced that a replacement for Wembley Stadium had got the go-ahead. A succession of current and former ministers admitted that so many bodies had been involved in the project, the delays had been unavoidable. Those who played their part in the shambles included the Government, the private sector, the mysteriously cash-strapped Football Association, the Health and Safety Executive, the London Mayor, Railtrack and local authorities. No wonder lawyers and accountants are having a lucrative field day devising incomprehensible contracts to keep all that lot happy. If anything goes wrong again, we will blame the Government and a minister will say that it was really a matter for some unelected nonentity, another Sir William Stubbs.

Here is a sad admission. For wider purposes, last week I re-read Peter Mandelson's optimistically entitled book The Blair Revolution, written in 1995. In it there was much space devoted to the importance of devolving power, of re-creating a civic Britain where towns and rural communities had strong identities partly expressed through powerful local bodies. It has not happened, this part of the Blair Revolution. Instead we have confused and insecure ministers at a national level, moribund local government, agencies of varying competence and the private sector, all trying to make a go of it aided by lawyers and accountants.

Unnoticed, Tony Blair made a sensational public statement at the TUC conference in Blackpool two weeks ago. For the first time he admitted that his government might be in office for some time. Normally he speaks as if power for Labour will last no more than a few days before the Conservatives resume their natural role as the party that wins elections.

But this was how Mr Blair reminded the unions that when they had bashed Labour governments in the past, they always let in the Conservatives: "It happened before: in 1948, in 1969 and 1979. The result then was the folding of the Labour government and the return of a Tory government. Not this time. It will just be less influence with the same Labour government."

After two landslide victories, Mr Blair realises he has power. More than that, when the only Conservatives to make waves are a fornicating John Major and an imprisoned Lord Archer, he is now in at least as powerful a position as Margaret Thatcher at her peak in the mid-1980s.

He must use the opportunity partly to define the role of his own government in the provision of public services. In his pamphlet published by the Fabian Society this weekend, he repeated his familiar defence of the private finance initiative and other convoluted schemes to bring in the private sector, but there was no crusading sense of a prime minister striving to revive public services, more of one determined to win an internal argument about the private sector. He always wins internal arguments. It is the equivalent of Manchester United choosing to play Colchester each week.

But in countries with a much stronger social democratic tradition than Britain, there are no big rows about the extensive involvement of private companies. This is partly because the role of government is clearer and therefore there is less paranoia about the private sector.

In Germany, to take one example, when there was severe flooding last month, the strong and robust local authorities took control, backed by central government with the assistance of the private sector. When Britain was afflicted by floods two years ago, no one knew who was in charge for days.

I am told that whenever the military top brass arrive in Downing Street there is a frisson of excitement from the top downwards. Here are people who know how to deliver, who know who to obey. In the public services no one knows who is in charge, who to obey. No one knows who is pressing the button, or even where the button happens to be.