As Libby Brooks has already blogged, last night's wellbeing debate at the House of Commons attracted the numbers, but did we get the insights? I posed several questions in my last post about exactly what we mean by wellbeing. After six great contributions from the panel and many more from the floor I think I can say that I am now a little clearer about things.

One thing I am clear about is that this issue heralds a sea-change in British political discourse. As James Purnell said, wellbeing will be at the centre of the next general election. It was no accident that last night one of the key strategists who will run Labour's campaign slipped into the room to take the temperature of the debate.

In that election Labour will face an opponent unrecognisable from the Tory party of yesteryear. Now is not the time to debate how real the "new" Tories are, my point is they look and feel totally different. Tim Loughton, the Conservative mental health spokesperson charmed many last night, including one magazine editor who is a life-long Labour voter. You can still see and hear the more traditional Conservative when he speaks but there is also an engagement - genuine I think - with an agenda that just would not have been embraced by the Tories of old. People on the left can no longer assume that this is "our" agenda. Far from it. We will have to develop and fight for a social democratic response - James Purnell, sure to be in Brown's first cabinet, has begun the process of formulating that.

Less clear is exactly what the different elements of the wellbeing agenda are, and how they fit together. Last night at least five themes emerged but it would be good to hear your perspective. First, there is the issue of mental health, with its sub-category of what type of therapy should be offered. Last night there was a fierce exchange between proponents and opponents of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) yet when I asked for a show of hands from those who didn't even know what it was, a third of the room admitted ignorance. As well as this key technical question, though, there is the question of what causes mental illness. The event's most heated moment came at the end of the event when Oliver James directly challenged the two politicians present to explain why Britain and other "English-speaking" nations had twice the rates of mental illness of continental Europe. Tim Loughton disputed the figures and neither had a thought-through answer. Obviously we need to know the problem's true scale and causes before we can work out the cure.

The rest of the meeting provided signposts, though. Sue Palmer focussed on child-rearing, her preferred term for parenting because it puts the child "back into the picture". Neal Lawson of Compass dealt more with values and cultural issues, quoting Mrs. Thatcher who said in 1981 "Economics is the means. The end aim is to change the soul". Tim Loughton, too, touched on many cultural issues but there was less from either about what might, in practice, be done to change things.

James Purnell, and Oliver James both addressed the policy agenda. Purnell, as a serving minister, more cautiously. But apart from Oliver's idealistic demands there were not many concrete, workable and electorally viable ideas - from the panel, or the floor.

Finally, a lone voice complained that there was no religious voice on the panel. I think that reflected a wider question of whether some of this agenda is more concerned with spiritual or certainly ethical matters than politics per se.

So there seems to be five overlapping areas:

•Mental illness - causes and cures?

•Types of therapy - CBT plus?

•Government - what can/can't it do?

•Childhood - putting children first?

•Cultural change - what and how?

Interweaved among these are the vital questions of values and ethics.

We need to find ways of continuing, deepening and broadening this debate. So let's start planning the next event now. Let me know what speakers you'd like to hear, and specific subjects you'd like to address. If you want to be kept on our mailing list so that you can receive an invite when the time comes e-mail me at event@therapyplusnetwork.org. And in response to this, do indulge in the usual barracking but do also, even if it's just as an addendum, tell me who and what you want to hear next.