The European social model is a sort of metaphor for the challenge the left faces.

Its underlying values - solidarity, social justice, fairness, equality - are everything we believe in.

As it was being created, trade unions were fighting for workers rights against sometimes abusive employers; the class system was rigidly demarcated; mass production was the order of the day.

The lines between services, manufacturing and public sector were neatly arranged.

Businessmen - and I emphasise the "men" - wore suits.

There was "big" business and "small" businesses.

The European social model was about "protecting" people often against change forced on them unfairly. Today we live in a different era.

The values are as relevant as ever.

The time in which they require application has changed beyond recognition.

Today's economies do not function by mass production. Goods and services are customised. Technology and globalisation mean constant adapting and adjusting.

Flexibility is key.

People will change jobs frequently. Small businesses can become medium or large; big businesses can disappear; and at alarming rates. Liberalisation is regarded in some parts of the left as a dirty word.

Yet "liberalised" is precisely how most people lead their lives.

That doesn't make those lives free from injustice or difficulty. Far from it.

But it does mean they need a different type of solidarity to help and support them.

Today the European social model has to be less about traditional forms of protection and more about modern forms of empowerment.

People want more control, more power over their own lives but in a world in which they know they can't stop the forces outside their control changing that world constantly. This means that education is the single most important element of a modern social model.

An active welfare state that is not about benefits but about opportunity, the only sensible form of social security.

People are workers and citizens; but they are also consumers and taxpayers.

Public sector employees need good conditions of employment; but their primary duty is to serve the public.

More broadly, in societies in which, compared to the rest of the world, there are high degrees of social protection but where there is also a growing and more affluent aspirant class, there is a hunger for a society with rules.

There is less tolerance for social disadvantage as an excuse for disorder or crime.

Issues of security, law and order and immigration have risen to the top of the agenda roundEurope, round the world.

In part this is because of globalisation fracturing traditional communities and producing mass migration.

But it also reflects a desire amongst the majority who work hard, play by the rules, are doing better but want to do better still, to ensure that others play by the same rules.

My point is very simple. If progressive politics does not respond to this changing world by understanding its reality, confronting it, interpreting it accurately, then its values are of no assistance to it.

If we are defenders of an unchanged European social model in a changed world, we are the conservatives not the progressives; and however much we campaign, protest, rail against the changes necessary to accommodate the modern world, however successful indeed such campaign or protests may be, the truth is the public, in their hearts, know the world is not as we say it is and move away from us.

They will support us in the street but not in government.

Or, as happened so often with the British Labour Party in the past, they will elect us as a reaction to an unpopular right wing government.

But we don't last; we are not sustainable; we are a pause in someone else's narrative.

All this is easy enough to declare in principle.

But I have learnt in 10 years of government that it is translating it into practice that is hard.

Now that I have said I am leaving the leadership of my Party, I can only offer advice; but at least it's against the background of the only Labour government ever to win two full terms in British history, let alone three, let alone have a chance, as we undoubtedly do, of a fourth. We won as New Labour.

New Labour is not a new party, though it did radically change the Labour Party.

The third way was never a halfway house between conservative and progressive politics.

It was certainly not a defined set of policies, though it has come to be associated with certain strong policy positions.

New Labour is an attitude of mind.

It may be effective in winning elections but it is based on conviction, partly about the true purpose of progressive politics, partly about how we interact with the people we seek to represent and govern. In simple political, strategic terms, it starts with a basic proposition: we face out to the people not into ourselves.

We begin with their world, their reality, their hopes and expectations.

And we don't compromise with understanding it.

That's not to say we exist to be populist.

We don't.

We have to lead as well as listen.

But we don't flinch from recognising where real people are.

The public come first; our activists second.

What does this mean? We escape the tyranny of the betrayal theory of progressive politics.

This theory holds that the public want more traditional leftist policies but the leaders of the left let them down by refusing to see it.

This is bulldust.

The leaders are nearly always trying to align their Parties with the public whose support they need to win.

And I've yet to work out how, if the public wants more traditional left-wing policies, they vote right.

Note I say "traditional". None of the above means that the public aren't in favour of progressive policies.

But they have to fit the modern world.

So today's New Labour is far more radical on the environment than 10 years ago, in public health policy, in areas of equality like gay rights.

But that reflects movement amongst the people.

Always keep the broad coalition of support necessary to sustain any progressive government: those who are disadvantaged and those who are not, but care about those who are.

Recognise that what unites them is a clear sense of social compassion but also a clear desire to succeed.

Aspiration and compassion together.

That is what creates a broad coalition not a rainbow coalition.

We represent the people not the amalgamated union of NGOs and pressure groups.

We put the collective at the service of the individual not the other way round.

Our government should be enabling, empowering, lifting people up, not sitting on top of them.

We should be unafraid of the future.

We should own the future.

Never forget for one moment that it is constantly changing and the public's worries, hopes and fears with it.

The reason we have to be the ones taking on the challenge of terrorism, security, and the linked concerns over crime and immigration is because the people see that challenge clearly and want us to respond.

If we fail to, if it's all too difficult, don't be surprised if they turn instead to the right.

I have fought long and hard to stop immigration being the issue that toppled New Labour.

In the last election it might have done.

It would have been tragic and a horrible mistake for the country.

Migration has benefited Britain.

We should be and actually are, proud of our diversity.

But I know we could never hold to that position unless we were prepared to introduce tough measures on illegal migration, cut numbers of unfounded asylum claims and seek to deport those who threatened us.

The attitude of mind is the same whether on immigration or green issues: always respond to the changing face of the future.

Never go back to our comfort zone. All parties have comfort zones. Progressives are more prone to them than conservatives.

Protest unnerves us especially if it comes from a quarter that is to our left.

As we in New Labour face the prospect of a fourth term, the danger is not a conscious decision to depart from New Labour; but an unconscious decision to cease driving it forward.

It is that we go back to what makes us comfortable.

Fortunately I have no doubt that those who will take on the mantle of leading the party into the next election do indeed want New Labour to remain New Labour.

This means "new" New Labour.

Standing still means falling back.

But it is change because of new issues, new challenges; not a rejection of the past 10 years, just an acknowledgement that it is the past.

The attitude of mind stays intact. This will mean going further from the comfort zone, not straying back to it.

The last 18 months have in many ways been the most radical of New Labour.

Despite everything, we are pushing through the biggest overhaul in state and private pensions since the War; City Academies and trust schools; measures on security; energy policy including on nuclear power; and of course far-reaching and difficult NHS reform.

None of these issues has been comfortable. In each case, we have been urged not to do it. But as a result of doing it, New Labour still dominates the policy agenda.

Remember the new tuition fees coming in last September? You probably won't. But when we passed the legislation, it was supposed to be my Poll Tax.

The point is this: stop driving forward and yes, life is more comfortable but slowly you lose traction on the political agenda.

That means, difficult though it is: being for hard as well as soft power in international policy; patient power as well as investment in the NHS; tough measures on crime as well as against poverty; celebrating success, merit, excellence as well as caring for those left behind.

It means never relapsing into appealing to our heart detached from our head.

So over the coming months, as we debate our future as a party, it is essential that part of that debate is about how we broaden our appeal to the country; how we prepare our party for the hard decisions as well as the comfortable ones; how over the next 10 years we breach new frontiers of New Labour policy for changing times.

Consider the Tory Party today. They are in a state of deep ideological confusion.

Their MPs wander around, uncertain, scratching their heads, some off to the left of us, some off to the right of us.

They can unite when attacking us; but ask them where they stand and they have difficulty finding their bearings.

They're supposed to be the law and order party; but take a bewildering array of civil liberties positions to oppose tough measures.

They try to go green but refuse to contemplate working in the same group as other European Conservative parties, whose support is vital for any coherent environment policy.

They now tie up with the left of the unions and the SWP in opposing all reforms in the health service.

They are the party of tax cuts one day; of more spending the next.

In December their guru was Polly Toynbee. In January it is Margaret Thatcher.

They are confused for a reason. We have held the centre ground. But let us be clear: that ground is always moving. Holding it in 2007 requires different policies than 1997.

And the centre ground moves only in one direction: forward.

Those policies are likely to be more New Labour not less.

If we leave that centre, the Tories will regain their bearings. It follows from all the above that here and round Europe the message is the same: be bold, not cautious; face out not in; challenge our Parties not comfort them; and construct broad coalitions of support based on real people. This is not about tolerating one part of the coalition and embracing the other.

Its not about merely accepting the aspirant class, tolerating the element that might vote conservative but we want to vote progressive; its not about being gracious enough to allow their concerns on tax or immigration or responsive public services to intrude on our core cause.

It's about a wholehearted embrace of them.

It's not enough to be "not against them".

We need to be for them, welcoming them, letting them shape and influence our policy. If all of this sounds very unsettling to progressive ears, it shouldn't do.

Being in serious politics is always about being in government.

That too is an attitude of mind.

Look at the millions of pensioners we have helped; the transformation of many of our inner city schools; the lives saved through changes in our NHS; the families helped by prosperity and tax credits.

Setting out to win is not right-wing.

Winning is the necessary pre-condition of serving. One final point.

We need to reform our parties continually also.

Traditional ways of working are hopeless for modern political parties.

If we need to have a broad coalition of real people supporting us, to win; then we need such people as part of our party.

Our structures are often old-fashioned.

We should be aiming for parties that are not activist-based, though of course we need our activists.

They should be stakeholder parties, run on far looser lines, with supporters and members co-existing together and with structures of policy and decision making always reflecting real people's concerns.

The pressures within the party should be those that keep us virtuous, in touch with the people, in line with the future. Do this and we can be governing parties.

We can change and mould the Europe social model for changing times; not abandoning its principles but making them relevant and alive to the modern world.

It should be progressives that do it.

An interdependent world is a world that demands progressive solutions.

Our values have come of age.