There have been further reports about how Labour may have reacted on hearing the news that the Tories had hired Lynton Crosby.
It was late one evening at Labour HQ when a teenage scribbler monitoring the newswires spotted the earth shattering news that the Tories had hired the legendary Lynton Crosby from Australia to help them get their message over to the public.
The scribbler put down his notepad, sprang from his chair and ran to the main office where senior progressives were discussing what would appear in the election manifesto. He entered the room and saw that there was a presentation going on about windfarms connected to the grid, strange carbon capture devices, a large image of a Monty Python style carbon footprint, DNA databases, biometric ID cards, knighthoods for services to banking, education, education, education and an OBE for Uncle Tom Cobley's dog.
"Excuse me," he said, "but I have to interrupt. The Tories have gone and hired man of the people, Lynton Crosby."
It was as if an electric shock had gone through the room. That name struck fear into Labour bigwigs. If Ed Balls was a nightmare, then Lynton Crosby was their worst nightmare. There was moaning, gnashing of teeth and there was wailing. It was not pleasant. Then someone said
"Oh my God! We're sunk!"
"Precisely!" said everyone, as an air of gloom and impending doom descended over the room.
Ed Miliband was called into the room and the news was broken to him as gently as possible.
"Oh my God!" he said.
I won't go into the rest, you can imagine precisely what that was.
Ed recovered quickly from the shock and said
"Pick yourself up off the ground and pull yourself together"
to two climate change activists whose knees had given way at this terrible news.
"We've got to hire someone who can counter Lynton Crosby," said Ed.
"But there is no one who can," said a young progressive and the wailing and moaning and gnashing began again, but this time it was even louder.
"We need a cross between Bruce Lee, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Banner and Robert the Bruce," said Ed. "No one else will do".
These details were emailed, faxed, telexed, mailed and sent by carrier pigeon to every socialist organisation on the planet. The search was on. These details were typed into every socialist database, DNA database and biometric database from Wigan to Waikiki. The data was crunched by supercomputers for weeks and then finally a match was found.
A sustainability supervisor rushed into Ed's office, where he was holding a strategy meeting with senior Labour policy chiefs, carrying the unopened envelope containing the name of the person that matched the stringent requirements. Ed opened the letter expectantly. This could well determine the result of the election. He read out the contents of the letter to everyone in the room.
"A match has been found. But he already works for the Tories," the letter said. Moaning, wailing and gnashing resumed once again.
Ed continued to read on, "and his name is ... George Osborne".
"So they have got a cross between Bruce Lee, Bruce Wayne, Bruce Banner and Robert the Bruce and we've got Ed Balls," said Ed.
"Oh my God! We're sunk!" said the people in the room.
"Precisely!" said Ed.