A question that’s been exercising me today is this: was Alan Milburn dropped on his head as a child?

After his Forrest Gump attempt to run New Labour’s General Election campaign, I expect Labour activists of all stripes were relieved when he was finally ushered back to his cage and a blanket thrown over the top of it. Surely his keeper knew what would happen if Alan was disturbed. Sure enough, a stray shaft of sunlight has woken him up and true to form he’s crapping in his hands and flinging the faeces at passers-by.

Just what he thought his article in the Guardian would achieve I’m not quite sure. Who was he trying to make an impact on with his arse-wittery? I guess it was Labour party activists but, too lazy and contemptuous to slog round party meetings, it was clearly easier to have his words recorded by the Guardian SO THAT THEY MAY NEVER BE DESTROYED. Us non-Labour types just have to suffer along with his intended target like civilians in a bombing raid. He’s like the dad who says to his two kids, one of who has misbehaved but won’t admit it, “I’m going to hit both of you so I know I’ve got the right one”.

“[T]he only credible prospectus for the Labour party in the next 10 years lies not in turning our back on New Labour but rather in moving further in that direction.”

Was he expecting a collective slap of the forhead from Old Labour stalwarts? “My God, the bouffanted, privateering shitwit is right! What were we thinking?” Or was it a concerted attempt to encourage more activists to burn their membership cards? At least it’ll make Michael Meacher’s investigation into why New Labour has shed 200,000 members since 1997 much easier. The report could just consist of two words: Alan Milburn.

He even has the gall to say:

The dream of the people who founded the Labour party 100 years ago was just this: a Britain governed from the bottom up, not the top down.

I mean, who does he expect to believe this crap? Does Tony know? He’ll go ballistic when he reads that. Would Milburn advocate the return of the party conference to its democratic, policy-making roots? Would he shite.

He’s a sad redundant figure. A lot like Galloway and Hitchens in that respect. Can’t we just put them all in a zoo so people can go and see them if they want to rather than letting them pollute our collective consciousness? George and Christopher could oil each other up and go at it like Greek wrestlers. The sexual charge between them is palpable. It’s like the Taming of the Shrew. I think they protest too much and really want to rut each other senseless - they can’t keep away from each other for starters. Get a room, guys.

Anyway. “Doing things to people will no longer do. Doing things with them is the key,” says Milburn. Does this mean New Labour will now, to continue the sexual metaphor for a second, be making love with us from now on? Can we forget about those frightening, grunting bunk-ups we’ve been used to? You know, the ones when you don’t really want to but, if it’ll make them leave you alone for a bit, you’ll lie there and think of Sure Start? Alan, after all is promising the Earth:

So people would be equipped with the personalised support they need to prosper in the still more flexible labour markets needed to meet global competition. Those receiving benefits would be given control over their own training budgets. Employee share ownership and home ownership would be put within reach of millions to tackle the most glaring inequalities in society. Taxes would be cut for the low-paid. Every citizen, not just the better-off, would be empowered to make real informed choices over their schools, GPs, hospitals, childcare and housing. Care for the elderly and schooling would be personalised to meet individual need. Local police and health services would be elected. Community-run mutual organisations would take over the running of local services like Sure Start, estates and parks.

And I’ll have a lager-flavoured pork pie with a raspberry meringue crust while you’re at it, Alan. And a jet pack. Dammit, I’m still waiting for my daughter to stride home from school with her government-issue pedometer. As a trial run, Alan, bring a box of pedometers to my daughter’s school. You could carry it gingerly and imagine you’re delivering a utopian society for all.

Like I said, just what dragged him away from making a few extra greasy quid by exploiting the contacts he made while in the cabinet, only he must know. He added just a dash more pollution to my day, pissed off a few more grass-roots activists which the party desperately needs, and the New Labourites just nodded along. At least it’ll give Roy Hattersley something to write about on Monday rather than why athiests hate poor people or whatever conceptual turd it was this week.

A nice story about ponies would have served just as well in the Guardian this morning. As, I’ve just realised, it would have done in this space as well.