The Queen probably does not think much about her State Opening speech. "Affordable social housing?" she may mutter. "One's had that for years." Otherwise, she doubtless contents herself with correcting the government's spelling and punctuation, leaving the loyal fourth estate to whisk policy ephemera into a political froth.

Consider the matter, just for once, from the monarch's point of view. First, there is the issue of transience. She has been delivering speeches setting out the legislative programmes of governments for more than half a century. She has announced any number of grand schemes and supposedly fundamental, paradigm-shifting reforms. She has a better idea than most of the many dramatic proposals that never quite got off the ground, failed to endure or were quietly forgotten.

Clearly, the Queen must have been as grateful as any seasoned public speaker to hear that this year's gig would involve only eight minutes' work. But you can also assume that she and her advisers can spot an authentically sensational piece of legislation as easily as she can pick a stayer in the 3.30. This year, there was no whiff of revolution.

By that I mean something liable to alter the way we live and society itself: the big stuff. Clearly, you cannot create an NHS, join a European economic area or nationalise a strategic industry (chance, that fine thing) every year. But anyone looking for real Brownian motion would have been hard put yesterday to identify a political personality, far less a "vision", in the legislative murk. The piecemeal construction of a security state will change all our lives, but it is not the sort of thing of which a government boasts.

The Queen, from her perch, might have spotted a second reason why the speech assigned to her seemed tepid, even half-hearted. The realm is not what it was. In fact, anyone looking for this week's "devolution crisis" merely had to remove terrorism from the list of Bills. Much of what remained could be labelled Not Scotland. Gordon Brown's government could not propose fundamental change for Britain simply because, in a programme emphasising housing and education, English life was the issue.

That's obvious, you may say. Such is our world now, ready or not. But if you scratch a little deeper, things become more interesting. On the one hand, Scotland's political culture has become lively, to say the least, while the proceedings of Westminster seem as stately, and about as interesting, as the spectacle of Black Rod. On the other hand, to be fair, you could argue that a programme of more than 20 Bills means serious business in anyone's language.

Mr Brown, substantial politician, is offering substance and work for parliament.

But what knits it all together? Where do the dots join? What was most striking about the speech, in fact, was the sense that it was politically narrow and intellectually empty. George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, never slow with a cliche, asked: "Where is the vision?" You could be more brutal. Without meaning to hit Mr Brown where it really hurts, you could ask the cruellest question of all: did he propose anything yesterday that would not have been proposed by Tony Blair?

The Prime Minister has had a decade to think about it. A draft of yesterday's speech - his first in his own right, remember - was, meanwhile, published as far back as July. Since the finalised programme contained no surprises, we are therefore left to conclude that the government has suffered no bright ideas for three whole months. But were we not told that Mr Brown would arrive in No 10 equipped both with a host of new policies and with a new attitude towards the business of politics?

This isn't any old government, after all. This is New Labour in phase two of "the project". This is an idea about politics made flesh. This is, supposedly, an approach to power less tactical than strategic, built for the long haul, thinking and planning in terms of decades. As Mr Brown himself might once have put it, this is a government that is supposed to abhor "short-termism". Instead, it bears a passing resemblance to Scottish Labour before the May elections. Each time it invokes "the people's priorities" it reminds us that populism is the abdication of leadership.

Cast your mind back a decade. Remember pledge cards? Remember the third way? Snake oil, of course, but snake oil that at least seemed to many like a new product on the market. Now, as the nights grow ever longer, we have Jack Straw warning against "despondency" over a government that is supposed to be new, fresh and vigorous. So if Brown is the continuation of Blair by other means, why was Mr Blair such a liability?

None of this is coloured, particularly, by misconceived plots for snap elections, or polls claiming to show David Cameron punching above his feather-light weight. The Queen's Speech is enough, in and of itself, to allow interim judgement. To repeat: it was assembled in the summer, long before the election nonsense. Yet it is now, like it or not, the base upon which Mr Brown will seek to rebuild his fortunes.

It will keep ministers busy, obviously enough. But will it do anything to enhance the Prime Minister's standing, or remind anyone of those things New Labour was supposed to represent? I doubt it. As a statement of intent, it tells us that a Brown government is engaged in seeking any and every narrow advantage it can over a glib opposition. In short, it's Westminster politics as usual, as ever. No revolution there, then.

Subvert the idea of planning controls to ease the way for airports and nuclear plants? Eye-catching, but not in a good way. Replace the Child Support Agency? That horse has already bolted. Climate change? More pious words with action deferred. The EU reform treaty Bill? A reminder of a promise broken. Flexible working? A decent, entirely unoriginal aspiration. Force English teenagers into education or training after 16? Daft, if it happens.

So many of the Bills are mere tidying-up exercises you begin to question whether Mr Brown understood the import of his legislative debut. So many others revisit old promises and old battles you wonder what, if anything, would have filled Labour's manifesto for the election that never was. Replying to David Cameron yesterday, the Prime Minister joked that "a few difficult headlines in a new job can be overcome". The lack of a coherent governing idea is a problem less easy to surmount. And the headlines will still be lousy.

Who is Gordon Brown? For a decade there has been no need to ask the question. Suddenly, for Labour and the electorate alike, it matters. To paraphrase the former Chancellor, he has a programme without a purpose, micro-managing nothing of lasting consequence. It now begins to look, in fact, as though New Labour and Tony Blair were one and the same thing after all.

We got used to the big clunking fist. It will be harder to become accustomed to the idea that the fist packs no punch. Gordon Brown: just another politician. Who'd have guessed?