The winning game would be to position the New Conservatives to the left of New Labour, which wouldn't be hard.

Promise to put income tax up to the levels of previous Tory governments, and spend it on getting decent services. Combine that with a pledge to cut the obsessive paperwork loaded on every variety of public servant, and to restore some version of the local business rate so that newly envigorated local councils can provide whatever level of services their voters require.

Here's a thought-provoking article Philip Pullman wrote along these lines a couple of months ago - I look forward to the dukedom this manifesto advice will bring.

It'll be interesting to see if they've got the nerve to do it. I doubt it somehow. But then if someone had suggested back in the Eighties that Labour would sweep back into power by moving to the right of Thatcher on a number of policies, that would have seemed pretty implausable.