What a fine mess Blair's got himself into by always wanting to please

Take four issues that have captured the headlines in recent days: Iraq, crime, the visit of the England cricket team to Zimbabwe, and the imminent congestion charge in London.

What has been the position of our mighty government on each of them? On Iraq, it more or less stands shoulder to shoulder with the US, but its elbow is starting to twitch a little nervously. On crime, it proclaims that prison is not the only answer for first-time offenders, while showing off that it has sent more of this type of criminal to jail than previous Conservative administrations. As far as cricket is concerned, it has declared belatedly that Zimbabwe is probably not the best location, but that the decision is not a matter for government. As for congestion charging in London, it approves of the idea in principle but will not support any scheme in practice. After all, it might be unpopular.

Where is the coherent story in that cowardly and evasive sequence? A government with a large majority has a supreme opportunity to change the way the country feels about itself. This is what Margaret Thatcher did in the 1980s. Policies and ideas that were unpopular in the short term were proclaimed, nearly always with a crusading zeal. At the very least, the policies appeared to have a context, and to make sense for her. Before very long they often acquired a broader appeal. The current government, with a massive majority and no opposition, does not dare attempt to offer a counter-narrative. Baroness Thatcher was a crusader. Tony Blair tends to be a prevaricator, blurring messages when they are too challenging or when they run the risk of inviting invective from the press.

He is even starting to obscure his message over Iraq, now that the moment of decision is both approaching and getting dangerously complex. Until recently, his message on Iraq was fairly clear. He stated that it would be better to confront Iraq through the UN, but only if this was a route for dealing with the issue rather than avoiding it. In other words, if the UN did not back military action it was avoiding the issue, and the US would press ahead with Britain's symbolic backing.

There were many reasons for this hawkish stance, some of which are worthy. Blair has sought leverage with the US to get a Middle East peace conference off the ground. But the US is as reluctant as ever to spur Israel into a new round of peace talks. At the same time, and for good reason, opinion in Britain is hardening against a dangerous war that has no obvious cause. Suddenly the message from the government is mixed: it is more likely that war will not happen. The weapons inspectors need more time. Help!

Why has the British government got into such a convoluted mess? Its equivocations would be more credible if Blair had not adopted such a high profile in his dealings with Bush since 11 September 2001 – as if this rainy island alone had the capacity to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US. Thatcher would have behaved in such a fashion, winning standing ovations at the congress in Washington, urging the feeble Europeans to stand firm. But in her case such positioning fitted into her wider vision in which Europe got in the way of Britain's all-important relationship with the US. Her post-Falklands posturing was a crusade to change the way in which Britain was perceived – and saw itself. Presumably her overblown vision of Britain's international role is not shared by Blair. But he has not sought to educate the country differently, to convey a different message. The narrative is unclear.

Last week the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, dared to speak some common sense on penal policy, arguing that burglars, especially those at the beginning of their criminal careers, should not be sent to prison. There is a big issue here. Britain's prison population is at an all-time high, much higher than in other EU countries, leading to overcrowding and over-stretched resources – factors that help to explain why the re-offending rate is so high. At the moment, 58 per cent of all adults and a staggering 78 per cent of all young offenders re-offend within two years. As the former chief inspector of prisons, Sir David Ramsbotham, told me on GMTV's Sunday programme last year, this is "both a failure and a waste of public money".

There are the seeds here of a populist counter-argument to the idea that "prison works". Quite often prison does not work, while costing taxpayers a fortune. Lord Irvine was bravely making a first step in the direction of that counter-argument. At Prime Minister's Question Time, Blair took three steps back, boasting that Labour imprisoned more first-time offenders than the previous government. He was keener to appease the tabloids than to persuade the voters to view the issue differently. He was much more comfortable with David Blunkett's announcement of five-year minimum sentences for gun crime – a policy that I predict will have no impact on the level of shootings.

The same weak-kneed approach explains why the Government has taken so long to intervene in the dispute over whether the England cricket team should travel to Zimbabwe. Ministers, who were frightened of headlines accusing them of being too bossy, kept silent for weeks, losing the chance to make a strong protest against tyrannical regimes other than Saddam's. Pathetically, they placed the ball in the lap of the cricket team. As they should have discovered by now, the England team seldom knows what to do with a cricket ball, let alone a political ball. But they did not dare to give a view when they had the chance to crusade.

Ministers tend not to have views when there is a danger of short-term unpopularity. To tackle transport they appoint congestion tsars and a Strategic Rail Authority. Those poor sods can take the blame. Privately, many ministers back Ken Livingstone's congestion charge, but they will not say so publicly. Some of them think this is clever politics: if it goes wrong Livingstone will get the blame. If in the longer term it goes well they will seek credit for allowing him to introduce a charge. This is not clever politics. It is cowardly politics: another lost opportunity to persuade voters about the need for some short-term pain in order to get Britain moving again. If Thatcher had believed in getting Britain moving again (which she did not) she would have been out there putting the case, and won sneaking admiration for doing so.

On the quiet, many ministers are working away and introducing some important and under-reported reforms. But in a second landslide parliament there is only a blurred outline of a narrative. Like the Conservatives, New Labour continues to seek an encore to Thatcherism. Only it is too scared to look very far.