Perhaps he has found a new taste for conviction politics maybe he

Perhaps he has found a new taste for conviction politics; maybe he is counting on the fact that neither the Tories nor the Liberal Democrats have been able to mount an effective attack on his leadership, although his internal critics are obviously developing parliamentary weapons of mass destruction of some potency. Mr Blair can still count upon the traditional advantages of an incumbent leader and prime minister. But he would be stretching the elastic of his party’s loyalty too far if he tried to defy the UN and supported unilateral action by President Bush. He would certainly not survive a war that went disastrously badly. He may be safe for now, but Mr Blair has been rapidly drawing on his reserves of goodwill.. If you go down to the Tate this week, you’re in for a small surprise Or a few small surprises. Stuck to post-boxes and lamp-posts around the gallery are some tiny paintings executed on vinyl sticky tape.

When I first caught sight of one of these little oils on a pay-and-display machine, showing a gentle view of the street scene that I was standing in, my spirits lifted. There is something incredibly charming about the idea and its execution. When this exhibition, Days Like These, was launched, one of the curators, Judith Nesbitt, told the press that the exhibition would show off a new spirit of gentleness among many of its artists.And there is definitely something in this statement. Most of the contemporary group shows I’ve been to over the last decade in London – from Sensation six years ago to Apocalypse two years ago – have relied on disconcerting, even shocking, artworks for their biggest impact. There are artworks in this show, too, that aim to disconcert you emotionally or aesthetically. But I found that the art that I was spending most of my time in front of was rather different.

A new gentleness; that seems to sum it up.For a start, there are those unobtrusive oil paintings by Margaret Barron in the streets around Tate Britain that quietly reawaken you to the scene that you’re standing in. Then there are views of suburban calm, by the painter George Shaw, who depicts ordinary spaces around council estates with soft nostalgia. Then there is the video work by Kutlug Ataman, in which the owner of Britain’s biggest collection of amaryllis plants sits in her suburban home and discourses on the beauties of her flowers, even shedding tears when she describes having to cull them.Then there is the work that lends its title to the exhibition, a video by Mike Marshall that simply shows flowers in a sunlit garden shivering under a sprinkler. This, like the other views of gardens and homes, is not some David Lynch view of suburbia, with surreal currents lurking just under the surface.

The video is just a celebration of something very ordinary that also manages to get across a surprising poignancy.And these aren’t the only examples of the kind of art that gives this disparate exhibition its particular charm. Although there are artists here that are putting across the usual grandiose statements, there are many works that are exploring this rather quiet view of the world. And when I visited the gallery, the people around me seemed to be looking at these works with particular interest.This kind of art may not have the immediate impact of the most daring conceptual art, but it has a very strong pull right now. For instance, at the end of last year I was struck by the new direction taken by Michael Landy. He is the artist who mashed up all his belongings – every single thing he owned – and threw it all away, in a big space he hired in Oxford Street.After that shocking gesture, it was hard to imagine where Landy could go next. But after a while he began to try something very different, making detailed and elegant etchings of tiny plants.