It was sad, but salutary, that Labour was so roundly defeated in the last set of elections it faced with Tony Blair at the helm. As he stands down as Labour leader and prepares to vacate 10 Downing Street, he leaves a party in distress and disarray. Ministers might seek to make light of the results from 3 May - "a bruising not a battering", was the official line - but in so doing they reinforce a sense that they are in denial about their prospects and out of touch with the public's concerns.

The statistics are stark: the worst results in Wales for a century; the first election lost in Scotland for 50 years; and in England the lowest number of councillors since 1978. For sure, there are caveats. It could have been worse. The SNP in Scotland may lose popularity quickly as it struggles to form a government. The Conservative recovery in England is steady and significant, but still patchy, with little sign of a breakthrough in key northern cities. As for the Liberal Democrats, their recent approach of offering a "soft" alternative to David Cameron's Tories has backfired. Whereas at the 2005 general election the NS made a case for a Lib Dem protest vote against Labour candidates, that option is fast receding, even if the original source of the anger - Iraq - remains undimmed.

Labour's polling guru, Philip Gould, takes a somewhat rosier view of the recent Scottish campaign (page 13), musing about the possible outcome if Labour had been given a few extra days to talk to voters, and predicting that these results actually provide a springboard for general-election success in 2009/2010. This view has become quite fashionable among some commentators in recent days. This is the politics of wishful thinking.

It seems that Gordon Brown, as he prepares to tour the country as prime- minister-in-waiting, accepts the extent of the task ahead. His will be a desperately difficult task. He has to transform the tone of a government with which he has been so closely associated. He must find policies that will revive Labour's millions of disillusioned radical supporters without alienating the floating voters on whom Britain's flawed electoral system puts so much emphasis. All this after a decade in power, at the wrong end of a political cycle.

Now that all the so-called mainstream alternatives have decided not to stand against Brown, the only possible contest would involve either John McDonnell or Michael Meacher. We hope one takes place, not because the outcome will be in any doubt, but because it provides a forum for much-needed open debate. Whether or not it does happen, as our political editor, Martin Bright, reports (page 10), Brown will use his six weeks of "campaigning" to try to convince the public that he has genuinely adopted a more listening style. They will have reason to be sceptical, but it is vital that, from these first days, Brown shows not only that he can change, but that the government can change with him.

With the Conservatives resurgent at Westminster and in the media, the next two years are too important to be left to the Labour Party on its own. It is important that the broad left/liberal firmament contributes to the debate about Britain's future direction - and that the government actually listens to it. Over the coming weeks, the NS will devote considerable coverage to what we hope will be a new political era. We will set out ideas and policies that we believe should be pursued.

Brown has been waiting for this moment for years. Over the past six months, he has been sitting on his hands, fearful of further accusations of treachery against Blair. Now he faces no constraints. This is the time for him to begin elucidating a new kind of new Labour. He must move quickly.

In last week's special issue, we passed our final judgement on Tony Blair. His legacy will always be sullied by Iraq, but he is right to take comfort and praise from the dramatic events in Northern Ireland of the past few days. Whatever pitfalls lie ahead in Ulster, the sight of implacable foes working together helps restore faith in the power of politics to bring about positive, and peaceful, change in places of conflict.

We hope Brown will have learned these lessons of success and failure.

Iraq, deceit and a relentless pursuit

In the days between the local elections and Tony Blair's resignation, we learned that before, during and after the exposure and suicide of David Kelly, the government knew that the dossier it had compiled to persuade parliament to take the country to war in Iraq was heavily influenced by spin-doctors, despite claims to the contrary during the Hutton inquiry.

This new insight into the way Blair pursued the case for war should, even by itself, cast a long shadow over the reputation of a prime minister so anxious to leave with a glittering legacy. But the latest proof of deceit and dissembling comes on top of our revelation in last week's issue that the Prime Minister's key claim that Saddam Hussein could develop a nuclear weapon in "between one and two years" was based on no intelligence at all. It was made up. We know all this because Chris Ames, a concerned citizen, has for two years doggedly used the Freedom of Information Act to get to the truth behind the lies.

We are not surprised that he received answers to his important questions in the weeks when newspaper, radio and television editors were most likely to shrug and want to "move on" (that old habit of seeking good days to bury bad news). Yet, as British soldiers and Iraqi civilians continue to die, more will emerge about the lies leading up to war. No matter who sits in No 10, we will, like Ames, persist in ferreting out the truth. We have no intention of giving up. Nor should others.

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