There are years of fun to come

So, another landslide. Were we triumphalist? Only quietly, late at night behind the curtains when no one was looking. Did we gurgle champagne with the luvvies? No. A few favoured newspaper editors and insiders were allowed a modest tipple. Are we celebrating a new dawn? Most definitely not. Labour was so desperate not to be seen repeating the jubilant scenes at the Royal Festival Hall in 1997 that no working journalists at all were allowed into the party's Millbank HQ, but were left to shiver in the street outside. It was not a good omen for open government.

That should not take away from Labour's immense achievement in securing, for the first time, two consecutive working majorities. The theme from the very start of this campaign was "work in progress"; the four weeks of electioneering were but a temporary interlude in Labour's ten-year plan. Day after day, visitors to Millbank Tower were greeted with the uplifting thought: "The Work Goes On."

And now, after a few roastings for the Prime Minister - from Humphrys, Paxman and, deadlier than either, Sharon Storer - and the Prescott punch, it's back to business as usual. One apparatchik explained the philosophy: "It's a bit like a painter doing a job at someone's house - the past few weeks have been about checking whether the customer is happy. Well, he seems to be, so it's on with the job." Quite - and just as the customer was delighted and excited when he first saw the plans, now he has settled into the frame of mind that afflicts most people having work done on the house: he is infuriated by the slow pace, resigned to basic competence rather than true excellence, and losing interest in the whole project.

Few in the Labour Party are in any doubt that, while their mandate may be huge, there is far less love for them this time around. The shockingly low turnout has given all the political parties cause for thought - but with Labour winning the votes of no more than a quarter of those entitled to vote, it is a victory for apathy as much as for new Labour. As Tony Blair admitted several times during the campaign, there has to be a more visible improvement in the public services over the next term. Given the general grumpiness about the slow pace of change, why has new Labour escaped with its landslide intact?

It is partly "the economy, stupid" - the feel-good factor, with low inflation, low unemployment, and the national debt largely paid off. But just as important is the phrase that Gordon Brown has been bandying about: "the new economic paradigm". The what? To you and me, it means that the political climate has changed substantially after 20 years of a Tory tax-cutting agenda. For now, voters do not rate tax cuts above all else. They have been persuaded by the argument that the Lib Dems and Labour have been ramming home: you can't have something for nothing.

In the final stages of its carefully planned campaign, Labour focused on the mantra "schools and hospitals first", to the extent that many of its other policies have been obscured. With the critical decisions to be taken at next weekend's Swedish summit, where were the debates about the environment? Come to that, what about transport? What about defence, as President George Bush tries to press ahead with his "Son of Star Wars" plan? Forget it. These are issues for another day. Labour decided that this election was to be about economic stability, then schools and hospitals; and, to its credit, the party did not budge - despite the efforts of the Tories and the media to force Millbank on to other ground.

"It may have been dull," admitted one strategist, "but it worked."

Too right it was dull. Even journalists rarely lost for words were wondering what more they could ask about schools and hospitals. All darts thrown were quickly sent back. What about the shortage of teachers? What about patients dying on trolleys in hospital corridors? The answer came easily: "Yes, things are bad. It's rough out there. But only Labour can put that right."

The Tories had one early break when they seemed to put Labour on the defensive over its plans for national insurance and other taxes. But the issue never really took off. The man most responsible for this was neither Brown nor Blair, but the hapless Oliver Letwin, the Tory treasury spokesman who admitted his party's tax-cutting agenda went far beyond the official figure of £8bn, to about £20bn. If the campaign had a turning point, that was it. From then on, William Hague's camp made no progress, neither on the wider taxation agenda nor on its promises for better public services. Oliver's mouth was the Jennifer's ear of 2001.

Without that, could the Tories have really damaged Labour? I doubt it. They had two fundamental problems throughout the campaign: the wrong issue and the wrong leader. Hague fought bravely, resiliently and uselessly. The public are cruel and hard to shift in their prejudices, as the party of Neil Kinnock knows all too well. But Hague made a big error in banging on so much about the euro. As an issue, Europe just didn't work for the Conservative Party, and Labour successfully neutralised it by stressing its promise of a referendum.

The Tories are now in a worse mess than Labour was in 1983. They are at least as divided. They have no "new Conservatives" to match the Kinnock-Blair-Brown trio of the Eighties, though this will surely change. And their members are older and arguably more implacable than Labour members in the post-Benn years.

It is easy to claim that the true winners of this campaign are the Liberal Democrats. True, the extra seats they took, such as Guildford, Cheadle and Chesterfield, exceeded even their own expectations. And yes, Charles Kennedy certainly surprised me, as he did many others, with his frankness, energy and humour. He has truly grown in stature, even if he has shrunk physically over the past four weeks. The Liberal Democrats are also beneficiaries of that "new paradigm", because they advocate raising income tax by a penny to spend on education (although, as Labour points out, they have spent that penny several times over with a series of pledges).

Yet what nobody can be sure of is why the Lib Dems picked up votes. Was it because the voters really do want to pay more tax for better public services? Was it that they wanted to say "a plague on both your houses" to the other two parties - and knew there was no chance of having to pay higher taxes because the Lib Dems are still a long way from real power? Or was it just that people want a different tone in politics: less spin, more honesty?

Whatever the answer, the Lib Dems' great advantage in this campaign - having a clear message - could give them a real headache in the years ahead. The party is now quite clearly established on the left of Labour, favouring higher taxes and more public spending, and defending vested interests such as the teaching unions. Fine.

But given that many of those they sought to win over are traditional Tory voters, this could be a dodgy strategy for the future. Their win in Chesterfield, Tony Benn's old seat, confirms they have picked up a number of votes from disillusioned old Labour supporters.

Here is my main prediction: in Labour's second term, we are in for a bumpier, rougher and more interesting spell of politics than is suggested by the immovable polls and the dull campaign. Labour dissidents are more in number and steelier in intent than they were in 1997.

One hitherto loyal Blairite told me he felt "sick in the stomach" when he heard the PM say it's not his job to stop the highest earners having their money. The bizarre, gloating, "new Labour are the masters now" speech made by Peter Mandelson at his count will only increase the fury of many in the party.

And the left, this time, will have its cause. The more that new Labour piles the pressure on public sector workers, bringing private money and market-based reforms into health and education, the bigger the union backlash. Then there's the euro - big enough to split the Cabinet and parliamentary party, as well as the country if it comes to a referendum. The support of the Murdoch press could turn into vicious hostility on that issue.

Many commentators have wondered why Blair has seemed so preoccupied and unhappy during the campaign, when you would have thought that, being so many points ahead, he'd be jolly. In fact, the answer is pretty obvious. The man can see ahead. He knows what's coming, to his left and his right. I feel a certain sympathy. So what if a few thirsty hacks were barred from Labour's election night party? Unlike Labour's harried high command, they have years of fun to come.