TONY Blair invites us to bend his ear in a Big Conversation. Though a newspaper column is not among his offered earpieces - Internet, phone, txt msg, post - I feel sure he will listen nevertheless. So here goes:

Pensions: The key bulwark against poverty in old age, the state pension is the most successful benefit ever. Fix it permanently at two thirds of the average income, at the same time ditching bolt-ons like the winter fuel allowance, the Christmas bonus and free TV licences for the over 75s. We pensioners can't expect to have it all ways.

Transport: Renationalise the railways and act urgently stop the imminent transfer to road of the 14 per cent of our mail that currently goes by rail. Make serious efforts to reopen closed suburban branch lines. Tax larger cars significantly higher than smaller.

Crime: Discover how phone calls to police stations were always answered promptly years ago and restore that system. Reduce the remission on prison sentences from the present half to the former third. Consider advising that, even with remission, an offender should serve the time in prison his crime deserves. Stiffer sentences, coupled with long driving bans, are also needed to combat dangerous or drunken driving. Far too often one sees distressed relatives of a victim of irresponsible driving rightly protesting after a court case that "justice has not been done". Penalties for wildlife crime also need toughening.

Environment: Take much better care of it. Demand that a share of electricity profits is spent on undergrounding high voltage lines and removing wirescape in towns and villages. Give higher priority to energy conservation, for instance, by curbing excessive outdoor lighting, which both wastes energy and blanks out the night sky. Plug the loophole that allows buildings to spring up on pocket handkerchiefs of land supposedly in agricultural use. This is creating a scrappy countryside. Tax airline fuel - or arrange duty-free petrol for my holidays in Cornwall.

Personal wealth: Mainly due to house-price inflation, inheritance tax, kicking in at £500,000, now catches many people whom it was never intended to. Disgracefully, Gordon Brown seems happy with this. To confine the tax to its original target - the rich - raise the threshold to £750,000, and review it frequently.

Health Service: Forget Foundation Hospitals but aim for excellence everywhere. To focus minds, scrap private health care. Consult with GPs to find the best way of delivering to everyone the top quality care you received when recently taken ill at home. Introduce the necessary measures at once.

Various: Education - abandon student top-up fees, a tax on knowledge and achievement. Fireworks - now a real social nuisance. Apart from Bonfire Night, restrict displays to licensed community occasions. Food - require clear product labelling, including calorie counts.

To answer some of your questions. Ban smoking in public places? Yes. Oblige nightclubs to pay towards clean-up costs? Yes, but also tighten control on their location. Paternity and maternity leave to be equal? Of course. Compulsion to save towards retirement? Are you on this planet?

But hang on. With contributions docked at source, the state pension and company pensions were effective yet painless "compulsion". Your Government has castrated both.

Our "Big Conversation" now seems in danger of going round in circles.