Cameron has learned from Blair’s failure to use his mandate and to command Whitehall

James Forsyth reviews the week in politics

The Tories go on holiday this summer knowing that it may be the last proper break they get for five years, or possibly longer. Once in government, taking the whole of August off won’t be a possibility for either ministers or special advisers: the pace of events won’t allow it. Indeed, one of the few things cheering people up on the Labour side at the moment is telling their Tory opposite numbers — or their spouses — just how crushing the workload in government is.

No one in the Cameron circle wants to be publicly caught talking like the election is in the bag: complacent talk costs seats and all that. But in private, conversation has moved on to the two ‘M’s: what mandate is the party looking for and how can it make the machinery of government work for it?

Tony Blair is the model, but the model of what to avoid and not what to emulate. The Cameroons are confident they can learn from his mistakes. They point to his failure to act decisively in his first few years in the job, the moment when he was strongest. In contrast to Labour’s post-election Budget, which stuck to Tory spending plans, the Tories are planning one with significant cuts in it.

The Tories are also determined not to make Blair’s error of hoarding a broad but shallow mandate. They know that they need to have clear public support if they are going to take on those vested interests that will try to block reform and cuts. So we can expect a conference speech and a manifesto that are far more explicit than anything we have heard to date about where the axe will fall.