NEVER in the field of party conferences can one leader have embraced so many and so much before an audience of so few. There were only a couple of thousand in the hall in the English seaside resort yesterday, but Tony Blair tried to bring billions of people of all creeds and colours from the whole world into his incredibly broad church.

He wasn't addressing the conference as leader of the Labour Party. Nor was he addressing it as leader of Great Britain; he was speaking as the leader of the world, the man with the vision to solve the unholy mess left by the fundamentalists.

First, he had created New Labour, then he had made New Britain; now his next task is to create a new world order.

"The starving, the wretched, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan, they too are our cause," the MP for Sedgefield told the few thousand in Brighton in a speech that, for the first time in the history of British political conferences, was going out live worldwide on the American 24-hour news channel CNN.

"This is a moment to seize. The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us."

Yesterday's was a vast speech. It was Churchillian in its belligerence against the Taliban. But it was also Princess Diana in its choked-up caring for the victims of the September 11 attacks and of the bombs yet to fall. It was a huge historical speech, matching the pillage in the name of Christianity by the 12th Century crusaders with Osama bin Laden's modern outrages against the good name of Islam. And yet it was also futuristic, looking forward to a time when the growth of China and India "reconfigures entirely the geopolitics of the world" and to when Britain is a member of the European single currency.

It was a truly global speech, solving specific conflicts in the Middle East, Ireland, Zimbabwe and even the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and moving on to address the general problems of a continent in a single sentence: "The state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world."

It attacked everyone, fairly and equally. America and George W Bush: "Kyoto is right. We will implement it and call upon all other nations to do so." Britain: "I think of a black man, born in poverty, who became Chief of the US Armed Forces and is now Secretary of State - Colin Powell - and I wonder, frankly, whether such a thing could have happened here." Islam: "It is time also for parts of Islam to confront prejudice against America."

And then, before the pieces could settle, it united them in a new world community. "There is a coming together. The power of community is asserting itself. We are realising how fragile are our frontiers in the face of the world's new challenges," he said. "I have long believed this interdependence defines the new world we live in."

It brought the religions together. "It is time the West confronted its ignorance of Islam," he said. "Jews, Muslims and Christians are all children of Abraham." Even more remarkably, it tried to win back the left-wing of the Labour Party, which has been feuding with the leadership over greater use of private money in public services. "This is a battle of values," he said. "Let's have that battle but not amongst ourselves. The real fight is between those who believe in strong public services and those who don't. That's the fight worth having."

And that was his point. In a global context, he said, the real fight is between those who believe in freedom and democracy, for all their flaws, and those who do not. That, he said, once more preparing the way for military action in Afghanisation, is the fight worth having.

There will be those who will mock Mr Blair for this speech. In the past, they criticised him for being too much of a moralising messiah. Now, he has ascended into heaven. Now, he is god, omnipresent, stretching out a healing hand to every conflict and every climate change.

Those people accuse Mr Blair of believing in nothing, of destroying the socialist party and replacing it with a watered down Toryism. They accuse him of being all things to all men and nothing to everyone. Of being all cheesy grin and no substance.

But yesterday, just as he was grim-faced throughout with the grin packed away, was precisely what he believed in, a worldwide, joined-up, thought-through vision of a future that could be better than the past.

One of the first casualties of the war against terrorism has been soundbites - Chancellor Gordon Brown's "no more boom and bust" has been packed away for fear of offence. But Mr Blair's favourite soundbite still stands and got a good airing yesterday: "the many not the few".

There will be war in Afghanistan on behalf of the many in the country and it will not spare the few in the Taliban. It will be on behalf of the many Muslims who do not share the fanaticism of the few bin Ladens. But "the many, not the few" goes wider still. "What is the answer to Britain's future? Not each person for themselves, but working together as a community to ensure that everyone, not just the privileged few, get the chance to succeed." And what is the answer to the world's problems of mass poverty and vast misunderstanding? "If we follow the principles that have served us so well at home - that power, wealth and opportunity must be in the hands of the many, not the few - if we make that our guiding light for the global economy, then it will be a force for good and an international movement that we should take pride in leading." And together we can bring peace and prosperity to all, while saving the planet as well. There can be no more noble objective. There can be no harder task.

Yesterday, economists said that, in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, trade will trail off and tourism will collapse. Another ten million people will be forced below the wretched subsistence level of a dollar a day: they will live on less than 68p a day. They will probably die. Some will say Mr Blair's plans for peace and harmony smack of naivete. They will laugh at his good intentions. They will say that yesterday was yet another final warning for the Taliban after a string of last warnings.

They will say that, after five years of grappling with Britain's under-funded health and education systems, Mr Blair is still no closer to taking us to the top of the international class, so how can he presume to preach to the rest of the world the cures for its ills?

But Mr Blair really does believe that the attack on the twin towers marked "a turning point in history". "Round the world," said the man who has indeed flown round the world since then, "September 11 is bringing governments and people to reflect, consider and change. And in this process, amidst all the talk of war, there is another dimension appearing. "

He continued: "This is an extraordinary moment for progressive politics. Our values are right for this age: the power of community, solidarity, the collective ability to further the individual's interests. By the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more together than we can alone."

The only turning point in history that September 11 may come to mark is the date when hope was replaced by fear. The world is still waiting uncomfortably for the unleashing of unknown terrors in Afghanistan. But yesterday, Mr Blair allowed a little hope to return, allowed a little optimism for the future.

That in itself was an achievement, and history will record that, of his career so far, this was his finest hour.