A leaked memo today casts doubt on the level of commitment for an election win from the Labour party.
The memo, purportedly from the office of Jack Straw, highlights current and upcoming "national disasters" such as the "National Programme for IT (NPfIT)", "London 2012" and "Gordon Brown" and goes on to recommend that Labour "bail out whilst we still can".
The memo details Labour's strategy to "pin the future crap on the Tories" by deliberately losing key seats in this year's election, with a view to proposing a vote of no confidence in a Tory-led coalition government in the autumn of 2012 "once the Olympic shambles is over". Retaking power "in early 2013" should be "a piece of piss" claims the memo, with intentions to blame both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties for all the problems.
"If we take a three year hit now," says the memo, "we can probably wring another seven years of government out of before anyone really notices the Lib Dems in their own right, otherwise we're definitely knackered two years down the road. If the economy wasn't bad enough, we simply don't have the cheap manpower for the Olympic build that China had for Beijing so we're never going to have things ready in time - 2012 is really going to screw us over. And NPfIT is already a complete mess."
"Talking Gordon into admitting his mistakes was a masterstroke, making him virtually unelectable," reads one paragraph, "most of us get to keep our seats and sit tight for a couple of years whilst funnelling our expenses claims to those who sacrifice their parliamentary positions, then we get back into power again with a significant majority - it's a plan with no drawbacks."
Jack Straw has distanced himself from the leak, stating in a flat, almost scripted tone, that he has "no knowledge of the contents of the memo" whilst suspiciously darting his eyes from side to side in a shifty manner and trying to hide a wry grin. The furtive winks passed between himself and a watching Lord Mandelson were later blamed on "the dry air in the conference hall."
(rework, advice, suggestions and ignoring this sub completely all welcome, and even encouraged)