Since Alex Smith took over I’ve been a big fan of the site but I have to say that it has gone to new level over the last few weeks. It really gives a sense of perspective and healthy debate. It would have been easy for it to fall into just being a mudslinging site post-election. Far from it, it gives voice to range of perspectives across the party: from the constructively critical to the ferociously so while sensibly leading on party debate.

I would even go as far as saying that there is more self-reflective honesty on LabourList than there is in the leadership election.

It has managed to retain absolute balance on the leadership election and is the place to go for the latest scores on the doors with CLP nominations and the like.

I’d really recommend visiting the site regularly and signing up to their daily newsletter. I know I’m biased (but I should say I don’t get paid for my column) but LabourList needs to continue its growth. It does need some investment so if you like the site, give what you can.

If not, just enjoy.

Pretty good answers actually. A few weeks ago, Bill Gates said that he wasn’t originally drawn to Facebook because of its asymmetric character. In other words, he as an individual would be required to devote more to his Facebook friends than they would be to him. That was resolved by the creation of ‘fan pages.’ Twitter likewise is more symmetrical. However, it will end up being asymmetrical so Ed will have to manage his tweeting moments carefully. But good for him for engaging and I hope people are understanding when he can’t reply to everyone.

As I argued on Friday the test for the new Labour leader is how they can create an authentic new politics of engagement.  It’s clearly on Ed’s mind too. Now he just needs to start telling Labour some things that it doesn’t want to hear…..which his launch speech yesterday was short of. One step at a time….

So Labour is in opposition for the long haul in all likeliness.

But there begins its trouble and toil. For in 1992, it was obvious what the broad strategy had to be- some form of repositioning in the political mainstream. For the Tories, their broad strategy was obvious in 1997- re-humanise the party and re-articulate their commitment to high quality public services. They just chose not to do it until after a third defeat in 2005.

Labour’s strategic challenge now is not at all clear. The obvious thing to do is go Clegg and Cameron. The centre-ground is now occupied, but let’s try and elbow our way in there albeit with a pinkish hue. That would require picking a telegenic, smart, savvy, retailable leader.

The obvious thing if this is the strategy is to go for David Miliband or brother Ed (which is going to be the stereotypical media view though it is, in many ways, very unfair as they are more than that.) In so doing you could complete the Adrian Mole generation- a shape-shifting, socially liberal, shimmering generation of Oxbridge educated political elites as described so dexterously by Martin Bright in the New Statesman four years ago. Why the Adrian Mole generation? They are all roughly Adrian Mole’s age. (I am reliably informed that Kathryn Corrick holds the copyright of the Adrian Mole generation concept!)

Or the strategy might be the distinctiveness strategy. You might say that Labour is at a ‘sack the board’ moment- i.e. no recent Cabinet members. And it needs to present a distinctive Labour alternative to the mushy liberal conservative centre-ground. Jon Trickett goes for this argument today but his analysis seems incredibly stale. The policy proposition is to be: (i) A new long-term investment state to rebalance the economy; (ii) Long-term investment in public services; and (iii) a new politics. Sound familiar? Well, that’s because it is. It is basically the Labour election manifesto but with a new leader (presumably Jon Cruddas.) No change in other works- just shout louder or with a different voice.

The third strategy is something entirely different. That is to acknowledge that there is no clever way of positioning the party that will win back power- either in the centreground or to the left. Instead, what we have to do is recognise that the rules of the game are changing. Political parties no longer control the political conversation. They can facilitate it. And where it is happening they have to ask permission to be allowed into the conversation- this happens both online (eg Mumsnet) and offline. The modern political party could be about association with a set of discussions rather than machine-like organisation and mobilisation. It is about expanding political space not just aggregating votes.

It will require pointing out the hypocrisies and failures of the ‘new politics’ in the form of the coalition- which tries to sound new while looking distinctly like the old politics. Millionaires, white, male, Oxbridge, political elites are all over this ‘new politics.’ Labour could attempt to exemplify the new politics in style, through real and not tokenistic diversity, and through genuinely ceding control of political conversation. This is what I mean when I talk about a ‘movement for change.’ It is non-hierarchical and about direct contact with people in their communities through a new, pluralistic, and eclectic political movement. I like this third approach.

The next leader should the individual who demonstrates how Labour can give life to this real new politics- one that expands political engagement, gives a voice to Gillian Duffy as much as Dominic Mohan, excites the young, liberal urban motivated as much as the hard-working market town family who just want to be supported to get on with their lives, and engages trade unionists not just big union beasts.

It is not about magically conjuring up the right policies pitched at target demographics or constantly poking the embers of the recent past. It is about remembering what the Labour party was about- a spontaneous and kaleidoscopic movement of people working together to make Britain equal and free. The next leadership must understand the present and re-apply the lessons of the past to build a politics that is genuinely new.

It will take time and the party should take time. And if it fails to have a female candidate on the ticket then that is shocking- step forward Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper. For the new politics must be as diverse as it is democratic.

To be clear, and I am genuinely open-minded about who it may be, the candidate who demonstrates a real understanding of this will get my vote. If, in the way they conduct their campaign, they show that they can do politics differently and engage millions of people in a different type of political conversation then they will have earned the right to lead in my eyes. A new way of doing politics- in deed as well as words- will get my vote.

Between, my journey took me- more or less- through the following seats (I stopped off to campaign in Rugby, notional small Labour majority- it’s a new seat) and they are all critical to the outcome of the election:

- Warwickshire North. Labour. Conservative target 147 (one they have to win with a swing of 7.7% if the Lib Dems and others manage to hold on to their seats against the Conservatives if they are to win an overall majority.)

- Nuneaton. Labour. Conservative target 85- swing required 4.85%. Conservative must win.

- Rugby. A new seat and again one the Conservatives must absolutely win.

- Warwick and Leamington. If the Tories do take their targeted seats from the Liberal Democrats, this is the seat that could give them a majority. Swing required 6.4%.

- Northampton North and South. North requires a swing to the Tories of 4.5% and South requires 1.85%. Conservative must wins.

- Milton Keynes North is Conservative target 36. And Milton Keynes South is target 7. Must wins.

- Luton North. This is Conservative target 158. If the Conservatives win this they are probably well into overall majority territory.

- Luton South. If the Liberal Democrats hold onto their seats, the Tories will have to win this at a hefty swing of 7.4%.

- Watford. This is Conservative target 38. Again, must win.

Somewhere near Watford I left the M1. But it struck me that I’d just traveled through swing Britain. If all the seats- Labour currently- turn blue then we are looking at a Conservative majority. We’ll see as the results come in……

I’m at LBC tonight. Tweet me or something to keep me awake.

There was plenty of dog whistle stuff- this is now about buttressing the Conservative vote. Gone is progressive conservatism. This is about adding a a few percent to their 2005 33% total by tapping into discontent with the Government mixed with more traditional Conservative messages. David Cameron, should he become Prime Minister soon after next Thursday as the polls appear to indicate is likely, enters office as a traditional Conservative. Many will celebrate that fact. However, he’s ditched all that was interesting in Cameron-ite progressive conservatism in the process. The man is still standing but he’s shed his load.

Nick Clegg has not really built on his initial surge. He hasn’t fallen backwards but the ‘these two’ routine is really wearing very thin. He tried to do some reassurance on economic policy and good for him for sticking to his guns on the illegal immigrants amnesty. Of course it makes sense if it’s done the right way. These people are here. They are in the hands of criminals and work in the shadow economy. If there is a passage to legitimacy that involves a recognition that they were wrong to stay here illegally with some acknowledgment of that in some community or financial contribution then why would we not want to do that?

Amongst undecideds Nick Clegg won according to Angus Reid 37-25-22 (Clegg-Cameron-Brown.) He goes into Thursday with his personal brand and political philosophy very much in tact. He hasn’t left the earth’s orbit as seemed possible at one point. He will remain post-election exactly what he has become during the election- the most interesting phenomenon of change since the advent of New Labour.

Gordon Brown’s performance last night reflected the problem he had with Gillian Duffy on Wednesday and that in turn reflects the difficulty that Labour finds itself in. The British people are from Venus, Labour is from Mars. There is just a persistent misunderstanding; voters’ needs and impulses are met with cold rationalism and technocratic jargon. Labour and the voters have woken up one morning to find that they have become different people. When we take a step back we may remember what is was that kindled the early flames of passion; we can smile at the good times and cringe at the bad. Ultimately though, it’s just too painful. we know we’re meant to be together but we just can’t make it work any more.

So we go into the final week of the campaign basically seeing if we can keep it together for the sake of the kids. We’ll manage it I’m sure. Like a revisited memory of a romantic day on the seafront of an English seaside town, Tony Blair is coming back today to remind us a little of our youthful abandon. We’ll get through somehow but it’s going to take more than a couple of romantic dinners in the local bistro to put right. And yet, underneath it all, beyond shared experiences and achievements, there is something there. But how can we learn to communicate again in order to rediscover it? In the meantime, through the commitment of tens of thousands determined activists we’ll pull through. And with good humour.

Gordon Brown won the radio debate according to reports. Unfortunately, it was on television that 8million people were watching the debate. And the style v substance thing is a bit tame now. In modern politics you can’t detach ‘style’ from ‘substance,’ There’s a reason we don’t send civil servants out to explain policy to the punters. It would precipitate revolution. In an election, you don’t have the luxury of separating ‘style’ and ‘substance’- they are bound together. So if you win on ‘style’ but not on ‘substance’ or vice versa then you haven’t won overall. You need both.

And that is what a general election is about- a conversation about our national destiny. And a conversation involves at least two participants. The problem is that one of the participants is rather too used to having their own way. So both have ended up just shouting at each other and not listening. And yet, and yet, the Labour tradition remains strong. Labour’s programme for change is the right general direction for Britain. The party remains resolute. Seven critical days. The opportunities for bucking the direction of this election are diminishing. And yet, the love has not quite gone…..

Meanwhile, ‘bigotgate’ does not yet seem to have had an appreciable impact on the seat predictor. Conservatives no change, Labour down one, Liberal Democrats up one.

A quick note on yesterday. What more can be said? It will either change things or it won’t and we’ll see. It has stolen away a day’s narrative about the economy which is bad considering that Labour is still in search of a game-changing moment. John Harris in The Guardian today speaks a lot of sense about the incident in the context of broader social and political change. It’s well worth a read.

So the economy moves centre stage. More specifically, debt moves centre stage. It was already moving clearly into view as a result of the IFS report yesterday into the deficit reduction plans of the major parties. It concluded that by 2014-15 Labour will have to find an additional £45.8billion of cuts, the Liberal Democrats would have to find an additional £34.4billion, and the Conservatives will still need to find an additional £52.5billion. This latter figure marks a fiscal tightening to a degree not achieved since the Second World War.

And then there’s Greece…..

As luck would have it, the leaders’ debate tomorrow is on the economy. It really depends on how things develop today but if Germany digs its heals in- and remember they have regional elections themselves a week on Sunday and the German public is against helping out the Greek economy- then that debate could be in context of major financial turbulence. The response of the major parties in the next 36 hours will be critical to outcome of this election.

The challenge for the Conservatives is to pin debt levels on Labour ‘profligacy’. For Labour, it will need to make the argument that failure to support the UK economy would have led to greater debts and economic crisis ultimately with all that would have entailed for jobs, people’s homes, and businesses. It is more difficult for the Liberal Democrats to make their mark and so this could be the moment the Liberal Democrat bubble begins to deflate. If the Greek situation is not resolved this could be, after everything, about to become an ‘it’s the economy stupid’ election. Ownership over the dominant narrative over the next few hours is essential. What I will say, is that the odds on Gordon Brown ‘winning’ the final debate have significantly shortened. He’s good in a crisis. And he’s good on the economy.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats continue to make gains in the seat predictor. Interestingly, the Conservatives are down by 8, Labour is up 4 as are the Liberal Democrats. This leaves the Conservatives 27 seats short of a majority compared with 19 yesterday. Interesting.

However, John Curtice has projected what the result would be based on current polls under an Alternative Vote system. One note of caution: his results do depend on a universal swing calculator so they import all the deficiencies of that (his ‘probable’ outcome in terms of seats based on current polls is too strong a description for me.) But let’s run with the forecast for now (it won’t be as bad as that in my opinion.) Could we really argue for a system that hits one party disproportionately badly and in an unfair way?

This calculation will have to be done after the election given the massive shortcomings of current seat by seat projections. Nonetheless, if an outcome such as John Curtice suggests was the result then AV is dead on arrival.

Anyway, onto tmg.co.uk’s (weighted) seat predictor. Liberal Democrats continued to make gains in support and seats yesterday. Labour are -2 on yesterday and the Lib Dems are +2- Conservatives are 19 seats short of a majority,

First was David Marquand’s fascinating analysis of what happened following the 1923 election which resulted in a hung parliament. The interesting point he makes is that Ramsay MacDonald refused to cooperate with the Liberals, looking instead to replace them. I find it difficult to believe that the Liberal Democrats will find themselves in second place in terms of seats following the election (and I still doubt that they will do in terms of support) but the strategic parallels are interesting. Giles Wilkes seems to add further support to the replacement strategy theory.

Now, for a mop up on polling. The magnificent FiveThirtyEight has pitched into the UK election with a new model of seat distribution. It has already been picked up by Toby Young in the Telegraph. Interestingly, Peter Kellner is reporting that the Conservatives’ advantage in the marginals is declining. Liberal Democrats are taking support disproportionately from the Conservatives in the marginals. His ultimate prediction is that effect will slip back somewhat resulting in an outcome of 36-29-26 (Con-Lab-LD) with a seat outcome of 290-250-90.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight lays out a number of different scenarios which- let’s be honest- is as good as any other way of doing this. His model allocates a certain portion of each party’s votes to another making it less uniform when it comes to seat prediction:

“The approach works by assigning shares of one party’s 2005 vote to another. For instance, what happens if 10 percent of people who voted for Labour in 2005 defect to the Conservatives, 15 percent of Labour’s voters defect to LibDems, and 10 percent of the Conservatives’ voters defect to LibDems?”

What the above implies is a degree of breakdown of the tactical vote between the Liberal Democrats and Labour. There are a range of scenarios but not one similar to the Kellner prediction above but worth having a scan through.

And, as for tmg.co.uk’s predictor, the weighted model currently has 307-229-81 which is based on poll of polls of 35-28-29 (Con-Lab-LD.) That shows the Conservatives higher and Labour lower than Peter Kellner’s predictions. Who is right? Well, no-one really knows but Peter Kellner has exceptional judgement on these matters. We’ll see. Can’t say any more than that!