William Hague was only joking when he made that crack about Tony Blair's ability to walk on water. The Prime Minister, he said, had missed his ferry connection back from France and decided to complete the Channel crossing on foot. But the poor Tories in the audience probably didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Mr Blair, it must seem to them, really can do just about anything he likes. Five months into the job and the opinion polls certainly tell us that "the people's" Prime Minister finds it difficult to put a foot wrong. As if to the spin doctor's order, the sun shone obligingly for Mr Blair's triumphal arrival in Brighton to prepare for Labour's first conference as the party of government in 19 years.

For added good measure, the polls showed his personal approval ratings reaching for the stratosphere. No less than 93 per cent of the public apparently think he's doing a good job. Eat your heart out Bill Clinton.

Indeed, as they struggle to define Mr Blair and his style, commentators invariably reach for Mr Clinton's title. "Presidential" seems so much more appropriate than mere prime ministerial. Backed by a glittering coalition which seems determined to include just about everyone bar Britain's remaining socialists, Mr Blair appears somehow to transcend the party political stage.

Someone yesterday likened him to an "executive monarch" and we were thus reminded of the cover of a recent issue of Private Eye. Prince Charles was pictured greeting Mr Blair and his wife, Cherie, on the soon-to-be-defunct Royal Yacht with the words: "Welcome aboard, your majesty." To which the smiling Mr Blair replied: "Carry on Windsor."

Just a joke, to be sure. But since they elected him with such an emphatic majority last May, many British people - and, certainly, many sections of the British media - seem prepared to credit the Prime Minister with almost mystical powers. Yesterday's headlines carried a strong whiff of this, telling us variously how Mr Blair plans to save the planet and the Prince of Wales.

"Blair: Charles Must be King" declared the Mail on Sunday headline, informing us that the Prime Minister is ready to help "sell" the prince's qualities to a doubtful British public. Prince Charles was doubtless relieved to learn that Mr Blair thinks the monarchy a vital unifying force in Britain which would be threatened if its hereditary principle was broken.

Cynics might think this a bit rich from a man committed to the abolition of the hereditary peerage. Old Labour doubtless groans at the continuing spectacle of Mr Blair's government leading the rehabilitation of the House of Windsor. But the mere fact of the story tells us much about Mr Blair's assumption of power, and his easy exercise of it.

We report breathlessly as Mr Blair proclaims his vision for a new politics in a young country of the next century. We know not where it will all lead, and some seem doubtful even of which country he speaks.

According to one account, he sees himself ending-up leading a country called Europe.

Mr Blair has certainly set a spectacular pace in his mission to devolve power and re-draw the constitutional map of Britain. He has deployed his undoubted authority to advance the Northern Ireland peace process. But some detect just a hint of hubris in the assumption that he might be ready to bounce the British public into an early commitment to join the European Single Currency - as they might, too, in Dr Mo Mowlam's surely daft suggestion yesterday that, given sufficient determination, the Stormont talks could be wrapped by Christmas.

The corrective to much of this excitable chatter will come from Mr Blair in Brighton this week. That nearly-No vote from Wales was a stark reminder that even this government should not presume upon the people. And the Prime Minister can be expected to underline his post-election lecture, reminding New Labour that they are the servants and not the masters. Indeed, today's first order of business will be to secure backing for the latest internal party reforms, "Partnership in Power" - which will further reduce the role of conference, and aims to reconcile Mr Blair's potentially conflicting roles as party leader and head of government answerable to the electorate as a whole.

Tony Benn and others on the left detect the blueprint for the creation of a new party. The leadership contends it represents a continuum of the modernisation necessary if New Labour is to retain the trust of the electorate and govern, as is Mr Blair's settled determination, for a generation.

As the delegates (nobody ever calls them comrades anymore), made their way to Brighton yesterday, Gordon Brown and Robin Cook were both denying responsibility for Friday's "leak" suggesting an imminent decision to join the Single Currency soon after January 1999. The Chancellor said yesterday's reports of a referendum next year amounted to "nonsense on top of speculation". Both men know Mr Blair has much to do, and many to square, before committing to a referendum campaign which many Tories believe could prove the instrument of their revival.

And while nobody would begrudge Dr Mowlam her Northern Ireland debate tomorrow and the opportunity to report the progress made, she might be prudent to observe that for her - as for this government as a whole - the hard bit is still to come.

Not this week, of course. This week is Tony's party - a celebration, richly deserved, of that historic night last May when 18 years of Tory rule came crashing to an end. Mr Blair will expect to win where it matters. The spin doctors were last night raising expectations of a few votes too close to call. But old hands suspect few will want to spoil the party - this year at least.

In the years to come, life may prove very different. For all the hype, much of the "old" politics endure. And Mr Blair's government will have to show how it can deliver - shorter hospital waiting lists and smaller class sizes within the constraints of Tory spending limits; social justice, and the embrace of the underclass, within a low tax, enterprise-friendly economy. Sooner or later, the European nettle will have to be grasped. And this government, like all its predecessors, must eventually fall victim to those cursed "events" which not even the greatest of spin doctors can control.

At that point, we will learn how Mr Blair will cope with the one thing for which his charmed passage has not equipped him - adversity.