John Prescott paid a welcome visit to the House of Commons yesterday to launch his department's new white paper, Our Towns And Cities: The Future.  This is a classic New Labour document, being printed on glossy paper and illustrated with colour pictures of the Elysium which is the new Britain. Happy people, many from ethnic minorities, gaze productively at computer screens. Pensioners get off a gleaming streamlined tram which has just delivered them promptly and inexpensively to their grandchildren.   In New Labour's dream world, canals are for strolling by, past bustling pavement cafes where laughing groups of people drink cappuccino in the sun. And they're definitely not full of dead cats, condoms or rusted supermarket trollies.   The prose has the same unreal quality. Nothing actually happens, nothing tangible is planned. But, we are promised, there will be "innovative developments", "local strategic partnerships" and "urban policy units".   Town councils will have   "new powers to promote wellbeing". As members of society, people will need to be able "to achieve their full potential" while "protecting the environment, both local and global." To make sure this happens, the government's "policies and programmes are the building blocks," and just in case we might think this may never happen, we're promised that "visions for the future will be developed".   There will be a "key focus" here and a "coordinated effort" there. The government, in its wisdom, has "established a framework". The whole thing resembles those fantastical architect's drawings, in which slim, well-dressed figures stroll across tree-festooned piazzas, with   no mention of empty burger boxes or gangs of glowering youths.   But Mr Prescott's statement, far from being the jumble of words we have come to expect, was an oral version of the same thing. I have noticed that the time to become suspicious about this government is when it breaks into capital letters. This invariably represents not the real world, but some new initiative, programme or quango.   He is setting up Regional Centres of Excellence. He has established a Neighbourhood Renewal Fund. He is considering an Urban Policy Board, and a Cabinet Committee is to hold an Urban Summit in the year 2002. Let's not forget the Integrated Transport   White Paper, the New Deal for Communities and the Social Exclusion Unit. Capital letters were all over the shop, each in charge of a resonant abstraction.   We hacks were abjured yesterday by Alastair Campbell, the prime minister's press secretary to mark the difference between scepticism and cynicism. My attitude to Mr Prescott's statement was a balanced mixture of both.   At one point, for example, he reminded us that Lord Rogers had said, "people make cities, but cities make citizens". Tories giggled at this, crying "wozzat mean?"   "Think about it!" he bellowed back, though I'm afraid I was none the wiser. You could say, "people make   cars, but cars make drivers", or "people make alcohol, but alcohol makes alcoholics".   This kind of talk spreads among the very people who use it. Mr Prescott got confused about the technical terms for a city. "The city of York already is a city, as is my own city of Hull is a city, and that I think is the definition of city and town."   Faced with these massive piles of abstract thought, there was little the Tory spokesman, Archie Norman could say or do. "The only time we ever see the deputy prime minister," he grumped, "is when he has a glossy brochure or a disaster to announce."   Or, I reflected yesterday, possibly both at the same time.