'I AM listening," said Tony Blair. "This is the time for dialogue. I have heard. I have got the message. I am acting on that message. On pensions, on the Dome. I was wrong. I can do something about the former. And I have learned from the latter."

But this was not a chastened, contrite Prime Minister who addressed the Labour Party conference yesterday, although the spindoctors will be happy if the electorate takes no more from it than the image of a listening leader.

It was instead a challenge to the voters. Listen to me, he was really saying. Hear what I have to say. And think.

"The real world is full of competing causes, most of them good," he said. "It is not an arrogant government which makes the choices between which of those competing causes the country's limited resources can be spent on; it is an irresponsible government which fails to make the choices." His Government had made the choices - and was not unpopular in some quarters because of those choices.

"The test of leadership is not how eloquently you say 'yes'; it is how you explain when you have to say 'no'," he said. "To be in touch is to be in sympathy. To be in government is to decide."

Having said it once and then twice, he rammed it home for a third time. "I am listening, but I was also elected to lead. And if we want to reach our journey's end, that strong and fair and prosperous Britain for all, there are choices to be made - there are forks in the road."

This neatly side-stepped the issue of fuel price increases - all but 2p of which, he again insisted, is due to Opec - by wrapping it up in the broad debate of tax and spend.

And he starkly pointed out the consequences of what happens if the voters decide he has lost that debate. "If you want lower taxes," he said. "You want worse schools, worse health services, worse law and order. The choice is yours. And if you vote for the Conservatives, you will get lower taxes, but also higher private medical insurance. The choice is yours."

Although he said it was not a time for lists, he listed the potential effects of the £16bn hole in the Conservatives' spending plans. It would mean 20,000 fewer doctors, 40,000 fewer nurses, 40,000 fewer police officers, 20 fewer hospitals, 150 fewer secondary schools. Then he listed how the Labour Government had spent the people's taxes, improving the health service, improving education, introducing the minimum wage, even giving people the right to be represented by a trade union - something for which the Labour movement had fought for 100 years but had only now realised. It was greeted by something approaching rapturous applause. And then he gave up on the autocue and ad libbed - even to Peter Mandelson's surprise. He spoke about how he'd enjoyed being a "builder of consensus", someone who had brought business and workers together to introduce the minimum wage, someone who had brought Tories and Labour together to reform the Lords.

But, he said, he would never compromise his principles, his "irreducible core". It was very personal. A leader stripped bare. His chin quivered with the emotion of it all, and only the most cynical would accuse him of ham-acting (although it was quite amazing how, despite choking up, all the words came out clearly).

Recovering his autocue, he ended on vintage Blair - broad, impassioned strokes about equality and opportunity for all: "Our journey's end - a Britain where any child born in this millennium, whatever their background, race or creed, wherever they live, whoever their parents, is able to make the most of the God-given ability they bring into this world.

"That journey is worth making. A fight worth fighting, a fight we must win."

But he had preceded his rousing climax with the qualification: "We hold firm, we listen and we lead. We hear the arguments and we make our choices. It is up to the voter to decide whether we've made the right choices."

One of the most noticeable aspects of Mr Blair's speech was the lack of gags. After an initial light-hearted opening, it ran 25 long minutes without a joke.

But then these are grim times for Mr Blair. He still favours an election in May and is still favourite to win an election whenever he calls it. But the polls, large sections of the people and the Tory press are all turning against him. These circumstances are no laughing matter for either Mr Blair - or the rest of us because, in a few months' time, we will all have a vital choice to make.