Paul,no labourites will ally with the tories for national salvation?Will they?
No deal could tempt the more recalcitrant metrorights surely!
No sweets of office or badges of power,no honeyed words
or appeals to the greater good.
We are talking of principled politicians here.
Or will I discover my right foot tastes of stringy chicken
soaked in Lee Robert's peat water!

Don’t forget Lewis that his own side, the Labour Right, have been deliberately undermining Brown and weakening him at every opportunity since he failed to call the election in October 2007. Members of his cabinet; Poly Toynbee; Neal Lawson; nominally Labour supporting media, et al, all had a hand. Of course much as this lot wanted shot of Brown, their own interests, divisions and vanities have served to keep Brown in place. One of the few prepared to act against Brown, with a degree of subtlety and with a degree of tactical care has been Jon Cruddas. He has actually been more adroit than the loud support of Toynbee and Compass might indicate him to have been.

Brown will be scapegoated now even if he is able to head a reasonably stable coalition. Personally I think Labour will either just manage a majority, or will be roundly defeated by the Tories. It is worth noting that Douglas Alexander who was once a loyal Brownite now calls for a tactical voting. Jonathan Friedland notionally loyal to ‘new labour’ also calls for tactical voting. Let’s not forget that he has been relaxed not to say mildly enthusiastic about the prospects of a Labour defeat for a couple of years. Tactical voting and a differentially high degree of Labour abstentions will bring in the Tories, - with or without the Lib Dems, - if the advice of the anti-Brown Right is followed.

If it is followed, perhaps Brown’s erstwhile allies will employ Mrs Duffy to bring round their celebratory drinks trolley.

The only good thing from the LP’s point of view resulting from a Tory victory is that Brown will depart the Leadership within days. His doings with Mrs Duffy have blown away any possibility that he might try to hang on as leader of the opposition.

Interesting as your culinary recommendation is, I am rather hoping that a Labour Gvt might yet be returned without the necessity of putting it to the test.

Paul,all your metro conspiracy theories seem to have imploded at once.
How can the evil alliance get shot of Gordon Brown by defenestrating him?
Presumably they'll have to poison him first and then drown him under the
ice bound river a la Rasputin.Or find that as they stab and stab with their carving knives they still can't kill the beast.
Maybe,just maybe,a Labour Party that had drifted too far to the right decided to stick with a flawed leader and an inept candidate in the hopes that something might turn up.
And of course it still may.As someone who would rather eat his right foot garnished with liver and onions than vote Conservative I hope it does.Devoutly.

Mrs Duffy is said to have acquired the services of a PR Company. I hope this is not so, because powerful interests will undoubtedly use her for their own commercial and political ends if it is. Of course, if it is true and tomorrow or over the weekend pretty poisonous anti Labour pieces appear in the papers, across the ‘new labour’ coalition, there will be a sense of quiet satisfaction. “What else can you expect from people like that,” they will say between themselves; - having made sure of course that the microphones have been turned off. Upon such things do the Right construct their moral high ground.

Whilst Brown apologised only because he has been caught out, I do think that the subsequent penitent sinner bit; the references to a certain Presbyterian decency and a knowing what is in those terms is ethically the wrong thing to have done, were sincere. Perhaps if he had remained true to the Christian Socialism he once espoused, Brown would not have fallen prey to neo-liberal ideology and would not have treated Gillian Duffy with the unmitigated contempt he clearly did.

Putting aside the fact that the Labour Right will undoubtedly resume their efforts to defenestrate Brown if he fails to remain PM next week, his conduct yesterday has ensured that the whole of the Labour Party will want shot of him no less than do the ambitious sectaries of neo-liberalism.

They won't go away Brian. They will feud among themselves, but they will insist on maintaining their stranglehold over the Labour Party.

Perhaps the Mrs Duffy incident is the final nail in the coffin for NewLabour, lets hope so. This has again shown this generation of politicians to be middle management suits, crawling to every whim of big business. The only other relationship they have is with the press, who are just as despicable. Brown, Cameron and what they stand for need to be swept out of our politics for good.
The reaction to Mrs Duffy was typical of NewLabour, when she mentioned old labour principles and particularly singing the red flag, Brown nearly fainted. Bob Geldof called our politicians a bunch of creeps a couple of years ago. Yesterday i think he was vindicated. Now more than ever we need PR to change our politics, i personally will be using my vote to try and achieve that.

Notice how silent labour and Compass have become on this, who is the bigot a Thatcherite labour leader who has lied, set up slush funds to fight Blair and basically put this country into a massive financial mess. The problem with tactical voting could see labour hit third place with the Liberals taking over second, labour would then be the party which sits in the corner like naughty school boys, it's a change which is coming any way

Having listened to what Mrs Duffy actually said it is clear that the initial response to her was that she was an embarrassing and unpleasant racist. Rightly this vile slur has been withdrawn. Brown’s response to Gillian Duffy was not untypical of what one would expect of ‘new labour.’ Whatever else they do, the anti Brown Right from The Guardian and Compass to Progress, need not think that they have any entitlement to use the Duffy incident against Brown. The fact is that Brown was expressing the views and prejudice towards particular strata of the working class, which are far from untypical of ‘new labour’.

Looking again at the briefing, I very much doubt that Mrs Duffy and the millions of good and decent non elite people she exemplifies, were whom Neal Lawson had in mind in his dog whistle signal to the ‘new labour’ middle classes, “… the developing Compass position of seeing the emergence of a more open and pluralistic politics as something to be welcomed. “

No doubt it will be Mrs Duffy, or someone very like her, who will serve the coffee.

Since Professor of Cultural Studies Jonathan Rutherford can write pieces for this site whenever he likes, perhaps after the election is over, he will tell us what the Duffy incident tells society about current political culture.

A real labour left women has a go at brown with real problems immigration, unemployment the debt, and then welfare, and this so called leader of new Labour has the gall to call her a bigot.

I'd rather be called a bigot then new Labour mate.

thats the problem for labour now where does it stand in the political field, is it another Tory party trying to defeat the Tories or is it a socialist party for the people.

For me it's a joke with a Leader so far away from the party it's Thatcherite

It is one thing to advocate tactical voting as a way of keeping the Tories out of power,but quite another to promote a nebulous alliance based on an esoteric notion of being 'progressive' in some unspecified way. The sectarian Left already exist in an ideologically incoherent mishmash, competing with each other more than with the enemies of the working class. Now there is the danger of the alleged centre-left competing for influence, in a post-election settling of accounts between Blairites and Brownites, and whichever other factions may emerge.

No doubt the Labour Party, and the wider Labour Movement, will need to adjust to the changing realities of international neoliberalism, as will similar movements throughout the world. However, solidarity remains central to our project.We may form alliances with others, particularly in specific campaigns, but the integrity of Labour as a social democratic movement, with socialist aspirations, should surely remain central to our politics.

Paul,your last post reeks of the slaughter of most of your sacred cows.
I see the anti-Paul as a superficial careerist metro-sexual based in Penge-cum-Beckenham commuting to a wine bar infested Newham adjunct of the City to pursue their advisory role to Lord Eatwell,and other progressive entrepreneurs.
But whose heart is in the right on place.

I agree with most of the briefing but there are ten seats where it is not clear that tactical voters should vote Labour. They are three way marginals where Labour's vote may have declined by several points since 2005 and the Lib Dem vote may have increased by several points. My view is that in these seats Compass should advise its supporters to vote Labour but not advise Lib Dem voters to vote tactically.

The seats are Stirling, Pendle, Warrington South, Northampton North, Ealing Central and Acton, Colne Valley, Brentford and Isleworth, Aberconwy, Watford and Bristol North West (being a sad person I have looked through all the 116 Conservative targets on the BBC website!).

The briefing is really written with the weeks and months after the election in mind and not with actually how people vote next month. It is not an appeal to Labour voters to unite against the Tories and the Lib Dems. It is not a document with the interests of the Many to the fore or with such efforts as Labour in Gvt might be expected to make on their behalf.

Compass in the Person of its Chair, some others on the Management Committee and beyond, are in reality moving away from the LP and like the least progressive elements of the SDP 30 years ago are out to disable the Labour Party as a democratic socialist/ reformist socialist force. The efforts by ‘new labour’ ultras to depose Brown last year followed the utterly selfish Compass – Guardian efforts to do the same thing last November, were never completely abandoned by Neal Lawson and tribe of the privileged and the rightwing he so exemplifies

Thanks to the efforts of pro-market tribe of mostly selfish mostly metropolitan liberals who are scarcely liberal in any Labour sense at all, the Lib Dems are rising and Neal Lawson with other Compass elements is utterly determined to hobble and impede the electoral advance of a Labour Party: even though it is dominated by people like themselves. The subtext of the briefing is that on 4 occasions since ‘new labour’ foisted Brown on the Labour Party, dissident ‘new labourists’ have failed to remove Brown. Now, Progress, Neal Lawson and presumably some other members of the Compass ruling group are looking to the rising Lib Dems to help them do it.

The briefing is the beginnings of a manifesto and a move to further damage Labour after the election. It is not even loyal anymore to the “not Labour enough and not new enough,” formulation coined by Neal Lawson. Compass, as supposedly represented by Neal Lawson has no interest in seeing any kind of Labour party and Gvt in office.

In light of the BNP threat, it most be hoped that Jon Cruddas is returned to the Commons. Since Neal Lawson is now emerging as not committed to the return of a Labour Gvt, such prospects as Jon Cruddas has in the matter of the Labour Leadership are likely to be significantly undermined by any association with Compass.

The briefing is exclusively directed to and marketed at the more liberal end of Establishment England; and of course the London based media to the Left, (thankfully,) of the Sun and the Daily Mail. Of the political position of Labour in Scotland and in Wales, it has nothing of moment to say. Yet the General elections taking place beyond England, beyond Neal Lawson’s essentially narrow, elite metropolitan networking with those whom will not be harmed or otherwise disobliged if Labour is forced from office, will be decisive in whether or not any kind of Labour Gvt will be formed in May.

"Combined support for the two main progressive parties has increased throughout election campaign"

Jesuitical obfuscation. What you mean of course, is that "support for the Liberal Democrats has risen massively whilst support for Labour has fallen".

So if I vote Tory that will be a vote for labour.

Of course if you vote Liberal and liberal win how the hell is that a vote for Labour.

The sad fact is labour are now basically seen as a dead party and idiots are talking on labour list even if labour lose the party should refuse to step down, because it's the only party that can save the country.

I think the NHS will be busy with failed Labour voters soon.

Very useful - thanks Compass. Hopefully this will make it all clearer - people must vote YES.