When I started writing this column, Charles Clarke took me aside over a glass of wine at the Labour Party conference and offered his opinion of my efforts. "Call that political journalism?" he said. "I call it crap."

He was defending the honour of David Blunkett, his predecessor as home secretary, whom I had described as a liar and a bully. At the time, Blunkett had just embarked on a comeback as work and pensions secretary and Clarke was enjoying a honeymoon as the most liberal holder of his post since Douglas Hurd. Eight months later both men are on the back benches.

I cite this story not to challenge Clarke's original judgement or to crow at his misfortune, but to illustrate how torrid the year has been for a government that has had to firefight on several fronts since its election victory last June and lost some of its best shock troops in the battle.

Labour MPs leave for their summer break with a collective feeling of relief. One backbencher told me: "You know things are bad when you are forced into a U-turn on home information packs." That house-sellers will no longer have to provide a detailed "home condition report" may seem like small beer compared to other possible U-turns ahead (police-force mergers or ID cards, for instance). Yet there is something particularly humiliating about caving in to the estate-agent lobby.

So what is this government for? Regular readers of this column could be forgiven for thinking that I am obsessed with labelling the cabinet as irredeemably corrupt, or appeasers of radical Islam, or free-market fundamentalists, or warmongering neoconservatives. In a period of almost total misery for our ministers, here are my five "reasons to be cheerful" for a Labour Party supporter over the past six months:

1. Health service white paper (30 January) - Our Health, Our Care, Our Say was a welcome shift in emphasis away from the giant super-hospitals built under the private finance initiative. Now we were told that we needed a return to the cottage hospital model.

It was hard to disagree with the thrust of the reforms: a national system of health "MOTs", an emphasis on treatment close to home, greater choice of specialist, more respite for carers, and more emphasis on lifestyle and mental health. Unfortunately, the launch was spoiled by news that many of the reforms would be delivered by private healthcare companies.

2. Smoking ban (14 February) - After months of cabinet confusion, including a blazing row between the Health Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, and her predecessor John Reid, MPs did the right thing by voting, by a majority of 200, for an all-out ban in pubs and clubs to be introduced from next summer.

As legacy issues go, this is one Tony Blair can be genuinely proud of. Quite simply, it was the biggest leap forward in public health for 50 years, and will lead to thousands of lives being saved.

3. Fabian Society Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty (30 March) - Finally "equality", that long-forgotten word in the new Labour lexicon, was forced back on to the agenda by the Fabians' report Narrowing the Gap.

The commission said it was unacceptable that 2.6 million children were still living below the poverty line. The Fabians later recommended making equality the theme of the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review and proposed rewriting Clause Four of the Labour Party constitution to include a commitment to tackling inequality.

The report demonstrated that progressive thinking is still very much alive in the party.

4. Pensions reform (25 May) - The Work and Pensions Secretary, John Hutton, said that in his white paper "lay the foundations for a lasting solution to the pensions challenge we face as a country".

For once, the spin was spot on. The eminently sensible decision to raise the retirement age to 68 from 2044 to fund the future of the state pension system; the re-establishment of the link between pensions and earnings; and the introduction of a new national savings scheme showed that, when the government thinks long and hard about something, it can get it right.

5. Compass conference (17 June) - It is strange that some of the best ideas on the left have come at a time when Labour is in a state of near-constant depression.

It is perhaps fitting that the renewal has been sparked by Neal Lawson, a man who once symbolised new Labour's failings as one of the main players in the "Lobbygate" scandal. The campaigning group he went on to found, Compass, was at the heart of the battle against "trust schools" and has helped redefine the politics of the centre left.

This conference, attended by ministers and activists, showed that Labour has not yet given up on the idea of making a difference.