Policy Exchange, Indeed

If David Goodhart could redeem Demos, then David Lammy can redeem Policy Exchange.

Fresh from the Blue Labour volume to which Goodhart has also contributed, Lammy today uses Policy Exchange to demand an end to the de facto decriminalisation of "petty" theft and of "low-level" property crime.

No one would now take anything more than a purely historical interest in the Gramscian Eurocommunism that initially inspired Demos, which had Tony Blair as the only MP at its founding meeting.

As this Government limps to its conclusion, it is increasingly the case that no one would take anything more than a purely historical interest in the ideology that initially inspired Policy Exchange, either.

In many ways, that ideology was the successor of Marxism Today's and all that. The sacked Michael Gove is a professed admirer both of Gramsci and of Blair.

Blue Labour: Forging a New Politics has the potential to be The Orange Book for the next Parliament.

Not as the basis of a coalition, which will not be necessary and in any case probably would not be possible. But as the basis for a network of alliances, such as around Lammy's proposal today.

If necessary, there would be ways of formalising such alliances. Conservative and other parliamentarians and commentators might, for example, be named as advisors on certain policy areas, not necessarily with their prior knowledge.

They might be informed of the fact in the official announcement, and told to get on board or else lose any right to whinge, having been given the opportunity to contribute.

After all, even Nick Boles, very much of Policy Exchange and thus very much of a mind with The Orange Book, has today blurted out the truth about benefit sanctions.

Speaking of The Orange Book, if, as all sensible people expect, the Lib Dems hold around 30 seats, then, even though it is going to be in Opposition, might the media start to reflect the existence of a party that can always expect to have 10 times more seats than UKIP's wildest dream, and 15 times more than the Greens'?

For five years, a party of government has escaped scrutiny by the absence of any of its voices from, most obviously, the regular columns of the national newspapers. Chris Huhne's Guardian column for a time after his release presumably followed his expulsion from the party, and certainly followed his disgrace within it.

That said, David Laws is in today's Guardian, and he has never even done his time. If the Lib Dems are as permanent as it is now clear that they are, then they ought to be sufficiently embedded in the commentariat that such a thing would be impossible.

After all, they are going to be the most consistent and influential opponents and critics of the emerging Postliberal order, with both Demos and Policy Exchange having gone over to David Goodhart and David Lammy.