When the going gets rough for Britain's New Labour government, the call invariably goes out for Dr John Reid.
Through Defence, then Scotland, now in Northern Ireland, he has acquired a reputation as the cabinet's safe pair of hands. One of the success stories of Tony Blair's first term, how does he assess the achievements of the first Labour government in history seemingly assured a second full term?
"This government is far more radical than people think," says Dr Reid "and I think among its proudest achievements are those that were established as aims by Keir Hardy about 100 years ago and that no previous Labour government had implemented."
The real decentralisation of power - the Scottish Parliament, the Northern Ireland Executive, the National Assembly in Wales - the minimum wage and, he thinks, "the abolition of hereditary privilege in the House of Lords." Surely more like near-abolition?
"No, we have abolished hereditary privilege. We haven't gone to the next stage which is to decide the method of election or appointment to it . . . but you are no longer there by virtue of your blood line or your birth or what your ancestors did."
Dr Reid continues: "In terms of output, it is probably having taken a million children above the poverty line and cut youth unemployment by 80 per cent in four years . . . having established Labour not only as a party of the heart but of the head, not only one that can tackle social injustice but one that is giving economic stability and prosperity probably, in the round, stronger and better than any government certainly since the second World War."
That might sound to readers as if there isn't much left to do. So what about the biggest disappointments? The Secretary of State is firmly on message. "I suppose it's that we have not been able to do everything as quickly as we thought and our supporters would have liked," he says.
Rehearsing the now-familiar arguments for observance by the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, of the Tory spending plans for the first two years - and the big-spending tendency which cost previous Labour governments dear - he continues: "Hopefully we can make up for that disappointment now by saying `It has been worth it because we can now sustain money in public services unlike previous Labour governments'."
Mr Blair's pitch is that the Tories had 18 years and Labour needs a second term to make good its promise. By what criteria, then, should he and Dr Reid be judged to have succeeded or failed in four or five years from now?
Dr Reid recalls John F. Kennedy's "not in 100 days, not indeed in 1,000 days" and anticipates second-term horizons by then will have lifted to still greater things. But he concedes it is a "legitimate" question. "I hope it would be on those elements of a civilised and sustainable modern country . . . and continuing economic stability for the longer term," he says.
In terms of how that affects people, Dr Reid lists education, transport ("big challenge"), health and law and order, "in other words, mobility, security, the prevention of preventable pain and the liberation of education."
Whether Labour can already reasonably contemplate a third or even a fourth term, does Dr Reid accept that Labour's second might be the last chance to save the National Health Service and that the private-provision advocates will be ready to strike if high "investment" fails to deliver?
Two things arise. "The first is that massive spending in itself will never sort out the health service. It needs investment for a purpose." Gordon Brown would approve. "The second is in the nature of the process. Whenever we reach a given point in the health service there will be other challenges that our success throws up," he says.
"If we are successful in having more people live longer and developing new remedies and new technologies, by definition there will be more people requiring a wider range of available remedies which can be implemented by costlier technology."
For all the proclaimed achievement and undoubted ambition, a couple of things might strike outsiders as a bit odd.
In 1997 the British people expelled the Tories with contempt. The polls say Mr Blair is headed for another landslide. Yet it is commonly remarked that this is a government which excites very little actual enthusiasm.
Unsurprisingly, Dr Reid rejects this. What usually triggers a rush to the polls is either a deeply unpopular government or a highly popular opposition. The apathy problem arises from the perception that the battle is already won.
"Even the Tories are going around convincing everybody they can't win. This is why we are saying to people, `There is a real choice here, and if people don't come out to vote, you can allow the Tories in the back door.' That is not the result of the unpopularity of the government but of a perception that there really isn't a contest."
Turnout could obviously be crucial. To win well, isn't it necessary for Mr Blair to command a bigger popular vote than in 1997? "No, I think the necessary things are to win this election with a working majority, do as we have done during this period to change people's lives for the better, in order that there will be a working majority at the next election."
So Dr Reid would feel vindication enough if the government was returned with a massive Commons majority but still with fewer votes than John Major in 1992? "We can play with figures all day. Obviously I want the biggest possible majority, but what will be important is getting that majority on the basis of what we have done so far and then maintaining majority support throughout the country during a second term," he says.
Another oddity. Here Tony Blair stands on the brink of a history-making victory. Yet we read seemingly well-informed stories about his increasing isolation in a cabinet in which Gordon Brown is said to be "rampant".
Dr Reid is having none of it. "This is usually said by people who have no experience of the cabinet, no knowledge of the thinking or discussions and historically don't like Labour getting elected."
Come on. Sometimes these stories clearly come from people pretty close to the centre? "I never know because the intriguing thing about these stories is they never actually quote anybody."
So let's quote somebody who did go on the record. Some weeks back Peter Mandelson raised his head above the parapet. He was clearly anxious that New Labour's modernising "big tent" project should not be endangered by a return to narrow, tribal or class-based politics. Has "the project" been damaged by the loss of Mr Mandelson? Dr Reid pays tribute to his predecessor's "enormous talents" and his role - with Gordon, Tony, himself, Mo, Jack Straw, David Blunkett and others - who committed to "making the Labour Party relevant to today's working people, today's working families". "Peter can rest content," he says.
So it hasn't suffered a lethal blow with his departure? "No. Our intention is to appeal to the many, not the few, as the sound bite says. We are not going to re treat into some sort of ghetto linking ourselves exclusively to one declining sector of population."
Many radical commentators and opinion-formers regarded Mandelson as the keeper of the flame in key areas, on electoral reform, the realignment of British politics on the centre-left, for example, and as a guardian of the government's pro-Europeanism.
Isn't it the reality that people like Jack Straw and John Prescott will never let Mr Blair reform the Westminster voting system?
Dr Reid himself advocated an anti-Tory pact with the Liberals in the late 1980s. He now thinks he was wrong, that you can't "tackle the problem mechanically" or "force the pace" of the consensual approach the government has already adopted in its dealings with people like Chris Patten and Michael Heseltine.
But surely they forced the pace in Scotland and in Wales? No first-past-the-post for the devolved institutions? Dr Reid explains at some length how consensus on the voting system emerged at the Scottish constitutional convention and was not a forced initiative by Labour.
True, but Labour in Scotland was willing for consensus. The force of change was the willingness for change. Couldn't the same thing happen at Westminster?
Dr Reid is "quite happy that we should return to this question." His personal view "has always been to oppose any electoral system which cut the link between the representative and a constituency."
He continues: "What you have to balance is not just the arithmetic element of democracy which tends to be pure PR, but the accountability element as well. And the accountability element, to my mind, is diminished when you cut the link, when no MP or representative has the ownership of a given constituency."
SO, finally, to the really big question for Labour in a second term: the euro. Is Dr Reid certain we will see a referendum on British membership of the euro during the life of the next parliament? Having been chided about having acquired the tendency of Northern Ireland's finest for long answers, Dr Reid delights in sudden recourse to brevity. "No," comes the reply.
Does he find it conceivable that Gordon Brown's ambition to be prime minister could actually block a referendum? "I don't accept the premise on which your question is based." What? That Gordon Brown wants to be prime minister? "Yeah, or that if he wanted he would take a given view on whether or not to have it.
"The answer to both your questions is based on my premise that we judge whether or not to go to cabinet for a decision and then parliament and then a referendum, after analysis of the economic situation and therefore the five tests."
So, possibly no referendum then. Or possibly - and more likely - a referendum much sooner than the two-year time-frame for decision mooted by Mr Blair. As ever for New Labour, the real test will be divining the polls.