Just As Well

Labour is five points ahead tonight. In three separate polls. The Conservatives are at 29 per cent.

George Osborne's twin role as the Chancellor of the Exchequer and as his party's General Election Co-ordinator is evidently a perfect use of his talents.

The FBU's battle for its members' pension rights has been taken up by the Labour front bench, while the RMT is funding Labour candidates such as the thoroughly splendid David Drew at Stroud.

The family is reuniting.

And what of me? I am now far less critical of the Labour Party than I ever was when I was in it. Far more influential, one way or another, within it, too. Vastly more so, somehow, than ... no, let's not.

Perhaps it was just as well that, in order to placate the disloyal and the ridiculous, the party officially refused to let me back in?