Anti-Blairite pressure group Compass are getting excited and planning for the post-Blair era – they are having a conference where they will “shape and influence a manifesto to change our world over the next 20 years.” Twenty more years? Guido doesn’t think so.

This is the manifesto that Compass is preparing for launch in the Autumn ’06 that you can debate and contribute to at this event. Every workshop and seminar will be asked to prioritise key ideas for inclusion in the most radical and wide ranging manifesto the democratic left has ever written.

The thinkers who will lead us into the future include Polly Toynbee and, err, Billy Bragg. Sounds all so 1987 and well, leftie. So last century darling.

Ed Balls will apparently be there, representing Grumpy Gordon in a sort of benign, non-endorsement hint that his master might be sympathetic to them.