A popular game some children play on long car or train journeys is to hold their breath when they enter a tunnel and exhale as they exit. One thing they never know in advance is how far the tunnel stretches. Labour MPs and party members are playing the same game as they wait for Tony Blair to step down. Having pre-announced his resignation a year ago and stumbled through a debilitating general election, the Prime Minister refuses to answer the "when" question, which even his staunch allies are now posing. A man who could have gone in January 2004, had Gordon Brown pushed a little harder, who reneged on a deal with his Chancellor to stand down in the summer of 2004, could conceivably hang around until 2008. In purely procedural terms, there is precious little anyone can do about it.

All the while, the Labour Party and Labour politics are dying on their feet, as several of our contributors point out this week. Activists have been leaving in a steady stream. The promise to "learn lessons" from May's dispiriting campaign has been abandoned. Most of Blair's time since then has been taken up by sudden events - the Olympics (for which praise is due), the G8 summit (a mixed scorecard), the collapse of the EU constitution (a stroke of luck for him), Iraq (an unqualified disaster on all fronts) and the terrorist attacks of 7 and 21 July (which, for all the denials emanating from Downing Street, can be attributed in some part to the war). The PM's attention might understandably have been elsewhere, but his domestic agenda is uninspiring: anti-terrorism, pensions reform, more structural change in public services . . . and one of those platitudes for which this regime displays particular talent: "respect". Revolutionary emptiness.

A consistent characteristic of Blair is a lack of rigour. From the broad grin and unbridled optimism of the mid-1990s to the furrowed brow and misguided annoyance (his criticisms of the BBC's coverage of Hurricane Katrina being the latest example), he has, as countless diaries of former employees attest, based decisions on the next day's headlines, particularly those from Rupert Murdoch's stable. Meanwhile, the new batch of advisers working in No 10, with one or two exceptions, is not replete with talent. If there is an intellectual case for his brand of politics, he is not making it.

The problem for Blair's depleted but determined group of disciples lies in trying to regroup while he is still around. When Alan Milburn recently argued that "if Labour is serious about winning again, new Labour cannot end when Tony Blair's premiership ends", his argument was fuzzy. What, more than ten years on from its invention, does this term "new Labour" represent? In Milburn's mind, it may be defined by, and confined to, keeping Gordon Brown away from the top job.

The situation is no more satisfactory for the Chancellor. Like the kids in the tunnel, he and his supporters hold their breath. Long ago, Brown managed to bring several policy areas under his influence - health, education, employment, international development - but he has still to declare himself on a raft of important issues. Preparations of a sort are being made, but must be surreptitious. He knows that people want to know where he stands. He knows that if he declared on these, he would be accused of another power grab.

With the Liberal Democrats embarking on a new round of soul-searching and the Conservatives soon to decide on a new path (the quasi-Christian Democracy of Ken Clarke or more of the purist same from David Davis), this is a vital moment in British politics. Brown, the man on the verge of running this country, needs to be tested. He backed Blair in that crucial cabinet vote on Iraq in 2003. What does he think of that decision now? How would he handle the Bush administration? Where does he strike the balance between security and civil liberties? Where does he stand on other questions of criminal justice? Constitutional reform? What about the media - would a Brown premiership be any less craven in its dealings with the tabloids? For all the paeans to the late and much-missed Robin Cook, Brown appeared more at ease over the past decade with the likes of Irwin Stelzer and Alan Greenspan than with the former foreign secretary, posthumously hailed as the spirit of the progressive movement.

There is much grass-roots goodwill towards Brown. And yet from declarations on Europe to various part-privatisation schemes, from concessions to fuel protesters to his choice of media confidants, some of his priorities as Chancellor suggest that he would have to work hard to fulfil the hopes that many on the left, with mounting desperation, are vesting in him. He must be given an early chance to set out his stall, as must any potential challengers. Concerns such as those raised by Richard Reeves, on page 14, must be addressed.

Why Brown? That is the political question of the moment. Labour's conference in Brighton is unlikely to shed any light. One of the most urgent tasks of Blair's successor is to rebuild a party rendered virtually moribund by a leader who has defined himself against many of the values of its members. Virtually all the inner circle has moved on. All the players are holding their breath, even if none can say so. What is required is a timetable, a date for Blair's departure and a mechanism for a transition devoid of acrimony but open to frank debate. Unless this happens, disaster may strike. On his retirement, as he embraced an American centre-right body politic with which he seems most attuned, Blair would be reminded of a legacy he shared with Margaret Thatcher: two consummate election winners who stayed too long and sent their parties into the wilderness. The stakes could not be higher.

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