by Don Paskini

Eighteen days too late, the Blairite “Progress” group has announced their intention to spend Lord Sainsbury’s money on publishing a new pamphlet in September called the “Purple Book”, which aims to emulate the success of the Lib Dem “Orange Book”.

Contributions will come from Alan Milburn, Liam Byrne, Tessa Jowell, Paul “the Thinker” Richards, Tristram Hunt and a range of other credible and exciting activists who have hitherto been denied the media platforms to put forward their fascinating ideas.

Those discussing the project hope that they may in future be known as the Purple Book group rather than Blairites, and apparently look forward to the possibility of a Purple/Orange coalition based around the “liberal centre” rather than the social democratic Left.

The name “Purple Book” was coined because “Purple was the colour of new Labour,” says one of those involved. “It’s what you get if you combine red and blue. It symbolises the need to stay on the centre ground.”

The pamphlet will include essays on the economy, the role of the State, public service reform, welfare, crime, the family and social mobility. The overarching theme will be the need to move away from reliance on a big State and redistribute power to individuals and communities.

The announcement of this new pamphlet has already given members of the “Purple Book Group” the opportunity to brief journalists from the Times anonymously about how useless they think Ed Miliband is, which is a really helpful thing to do just over two weeks before the local elections.

A few years ago, these guys were the dominant faction in a party which won successive landslide elections. Now they are reduced to using handouts from multi millionaires to try to follow in the footsteps of right wing Liberal Democrats. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.