This was not the speech of a man heading for the exit. There had been rumours in some circles - more in hope than expectation - that Tony Blair might finish his ninth party conference speech as prime minister with an announcement that it would also be his last. Perhaps he would spring a surprise, as he did in his debut address in 1994 when he signalled the scrapping of Clause 4 of the party's constitution in a final, unscripted paragraph. The warm-up music seemed to hint at just such an outcome. Before the leader appeared, the PA system blared: One More Time.

But he did not make that move. On the contrary, Blair did not so much as nod in the direction of the bombshell he dropped just after last year's conference, when he declared his plan to step down before the next election. In a speech whose driving theme was change - blisteringly fast, transforming every aspect of 21st-century life - only one corner was left immune: the leadership of the Labour party which, it seemed, was to remain fixed and constant.

Not only did he not refer to the expected transition to Gordon Brown, he cast himself as a man with much more to do. Whether it was improving hospitals and schools or nurturing respect and civility, this was a man determined to show he has a full programme - one that will take years to achieve.

A leader preparing for retirement would have dwelled on past glories, bragging of his triple election victories and sitting on his laurels. Blair did only a little of that, keen to give no comfort to those eager to brand him yesterday's man. When he did speak of the past, it was to draw strength for the future. In perhaps his most provocative line, he insisted: "Every time I've ever introduced a reform in government, I wish in retrospect I had gone further." It was a reprise of his 2003 declaration that he had "no reverse gear". My only regret? That I didn't do more. Hardly the sentiment of a man who believes his work is done.

Similarly pointed were his repeated references to his own experience. "I tell you my conclusion after eight years of being prime minister," he said. "Again, based on my experience," he said later, before telling of the lessons he had learned about leadership. The subtext was clear: my longevity of service is not a liability, but an asset and should not be discarded lightly.

None of this was delivered with fireworks. There was little of the fizz or crackle of previous performances; not even a single, standout soundbite for the teatime news. This speech was a flatter affair, but that seemed to reinforce part of Blair's message: that he offered sober, mature leadership. Once he told Labour he wanted Britain to be "a young country". Yesterday Labour was a "grown-up party capable of leading a grown-up nation".

In that spirit, perhaps, Blair's speechwriters devoted their energies to crafting an argument that was coherent rather than flashy. They succeeded, putting together a case that held together with greater logic than many of the PM's previous efforts. The world was changing with dizzying speed, he explained, and Labour could not run or hide from it, but had to shape it according to its own values.

On one specific, he achieved something he had not managed before, and not for lack of trying. At long last he made a progressive case for the policy he cherishes but which arouses such suspicion: choice in public services. Choice was no New Labour invention, he said. "Choice is what wealthy people have exercised for centuries. I want decent, hardworking families to have the same power." Criticisms remain, of course, not least that what the rich have is access to quality services, rather than choice, but it sounded powerful all the same.

More arresting was a plea to reverse some of the passivity that infuses so much of British life. He looked forward to the day when someone, complaining about a poor school or hospital, asked him what he was going to do about it and he could reply: "We have given you the resources. We have given you the powers. Now tell me what you are going to do about it."

Blair's speechwriters hoped that would be one paragraph that might live on for rather longer than a single Brighton evening. It does indeed challenge a deep-rooted British habit, to await succour and relief from our masters rather than ourselves. And it is a large idea, suggesting a role for the state not as a top-down provider, but as an enabler, in Blair's words, "putting decision making in the hands of people not government".

His riffs on globalisation were effective too, as was his observation that the Labour government of the Wilson and Callaghan years had failed to grasp the changing world all around them and therefore had left Thatcherism to deal with the challenge instead. In that sense, Thatcher's victims were really Labour's. "People suffered in those 18 years because we let them down."

That he could say that to a Labour audience with not a murmur of protest was a testament to the degree of control he continues to exercise over this party. In the hall, gee-ed up by party workers acting as warm-up men, they cheered on cue, even applauding things they probably oppose.

Still, there were holes. The passage on Iraq was especially weak, perhaps inevitably. The prime minister recycled the tired, neoconservative line that Iraq is merely the fiercest front in the global war on terror rather than a specific insurgency sparked by a foreign occupation.

He refused, again, to see any link between Iraq and the terror attacks of July 7: those killers were merely fighting a "pre-medieval religious war". Tendentiously, he sought to roll Iraq together with Afghanistan, Kosovo and even Sierra Leone as a single "progressive cause".

Mainly, though, this was a solid, coherent piece of work that did the job it needed to. What Downing Street feared was a conference that left Blair exposed as a leader who had run out of gas, with Gordon Brown as the coming man. If Brown had won a rapturous response on Monday and Blair had looked weak yesterday, calls for a swift transition would now be loud.

Blair may have pushed them back - at least for now, for one speech cannot transform an entire political reality. The reasons why many are impatient for change still stand. Trust, Iraq, the need to re-energise an eight-year government and rebuild a hollowed-out Labour party - all those pressures have not been magicked away by a single address. The fundamental problems gripping this government remain, yet on yesterday's evidence, Tony Blair still believes he is the man best placed to solve them. It looks like this is going to be a long goodbye.