How much trouble are Labour activists in when their “reach out to the grassroots” initiative is a self-confessed derivation of the mega-successful Tory grassroots initiative? Billed as a cross between U.S. leftist website Daily Kos and the British ConservativeHome website, LabourHome is off to a shaky start and has opened its doors for business. The welcome message to the currently content-free site is a little confused, giving full tribute for the inspiration to the ConservativeHome website, yet they confusingly thank Tim Ireland. Would that be the anti-war Tim Ireland, the left-wing twisted genius behind the ironic Backing Blair campaign? Did they actually mean Tim Montgomerie, ex-IDS chief-of-staff and Tory online powerbroker?

The site was registered by Alex Hilton, who has been a bit of an online Monkey. It is intended to be separate from the official Labour party, yet it looks like an official site. Confused?

How long will it be before they start internecine arguing about Iraq?

UPDATE : The site now says it will open for business at the end of the week. Alex Hilton has emailed to say it was not ready to go live and he has now taken the site down, whereas last night he told me to register and post an article on it. Confused.