A howl of rage from Polly to bring glee to the hearts of all right-thinking men...

It is Labour that has become the stupid party - dumb, directionless, depressing. [...] Labour has nothing to say and no territory to call its own. [...]

There is only one option - to start all over again, scorched earth. Do what Labour did in 1994 or what Cameron did in 2005. Begin by rooting out everything that has made Labour's reputation toxic to voters - and rediscover everything that made Labour worth voting for. [...]

Look at Labour successes - the minimum wage, child poverty, children's centres, aid for Africa, free museums, NHS waiting lists, new health centres and schools well-stocked and well-staffed after those 18 miserable drought years of Thatcherism - there is much to be proud of. But all these were promises devised in the resurgent days before 1997. Has Labour still the appetite for anything as radical as its own first term? Can it recapture that insurgent spirit? If not, why would anyone vote them back in?

Why indeed? But then again, that's the question some of us have been asking for years now. What, in the end, was the point?

New Labour achieved a big tent, all right; it got people like myself and Justin, to take a random example, agreeing on almost as much as we disagreed on. Yes, of course we have radically different views of how society's problems should be solved; when there is a Tory government, our short-lived alliance, of sorts - our coalition of the willing, if you will - will quite possibly, probably, be over. But for now, here we stand; in opposition to the wholesale soiling of our political system, of cash for honours and policies for sale to the highest bidder, of the acceptance of mendacity as a constant in our political equation, of the steady erosion of civil liberties in the name of The War Against Terror, of soundbite politics, of compliance in torture, of the deliberate distortion and destruction of language to the twisted purposes of politicians who can't see beyond the nearest Daily Mail headline.

To which I would add the grotesque waste of public money on public services that can absorb huge geysers of cash with nought but the barest improvements in service standards; the continued fleecing of the taxpayer to finance harebrained PFI schemes, national ID, NHS and DNA databases at a cost of tens of billions, and hollow initiative after bungled relaunch after pointless taskforce after wasteful quango. Look again at Polly's list of "successes". Minimum wage? Then why are working families being fucked by the self-same government? The NHS? Speak to Crippen. Aid for Africa? Free museums? I mean, what?

Maybe the Tories will be just as bad. I don't think they will be - I don't think they can be - because I'm ideologically and tribally predisposed to agree with much of what they say; I suspect most of the left-wing critics of this government, by contrast, think that in the short term they might even be better, but in the medium term will prove to be worse - but that the intervening four or five years will give Labour time to regain its purpose, whatever that may be. Well, the proof will be along soon enough.

As for poor Pol, where to start? Imagine the despair, so raw you can almost taste it. Imagine the sense of crushing disappointment. For years now, she has waited for her prince to come - her dashing Norse warrior, who will sweep away all the effete detritus of the Blair years and unload a torrent of resources into child poverty and public services. Night after night she has left the red light on for him; lying in the bed in her Agent Provocateur lingerie, maybe some crotchless pants and a peephole bra, striking an uncomfortable pose lest he come charging through the door at any moment to sweep her up in his powerful arms.

And then, after what seemed like years, suddenly there he is; his chunky body framed by the doorwell, his Presbyterian profile silhouetted in the crimson glow. Here, she thinks, is her Viking! Quickly, silently, she enfolds him, gorging on his lengthy pledges, swallowing his promises, almost gagging on the heady, musky scent of true, bestial socialism unleashed after so long under wraps. There doesn't seem to be quite as much as he had promised, sure, but no matter; isn't there plenty of goodness in those heavy, swinging sacs of his, so engorged with cash that they seem about to burst? It's not all about presentation, you know. Never mind the quality; feel the width.

And now, at last, her hero is ready to spend, and spend big. The signs are unmistakeable; the guttural Scottish grunts, the trademark reddening of the face, the famous dropped jaw working overtime. Gordon shuts his one good eye and starts bellowing that, after so many years, he is ready to deliver. "Yes!" mumbles Polly through a mouthful (or perhaps half-mouthful) of Fife cock. "Deliver, as you have promised for so long that you would! Spend! Spend on me as if it's someone else's to pay for!"

And she waits and waits, expecting at any moment the jet of warm public spending to hit the back of her throat in a salty gush; and still it doesn't come. No, she thinks, this can't be right; all he needs is to be emboldened and empurplened further. And so she redoubles her efforts, sucking hungrily on his red-veined Havana like a desperate asthmatic wheezing on a Ventolin; and still he can't deliver, and she can see his good eye misting over with rage and disappointment, and now she can feel the tears in her eyes too; and still she refuses to give up, but he's growing limp and soft now, and she realises that the critics were right; that he was not the man she thought he was, but the man we thought he was; that he is a political soft-cock, who talks credulous believers like you into the boudoir and then, at the moment of maximum opportunity, cannot deliver, because he is a miserable failure who cannot even fulfil the basic functions expected of him by those who put their laughably misplaced faith in him for all those years. The Erection That Never Was.

What is left, finally, but for him to grab his things and, with a mumbled, shamefaced apology, to leave and never dare to show his face again? How long must this embarrassed silence now last? There's the door, Gordon. Don't worry; we won't tell.