But Derek Draper has probably played as big a part as anyone in ensuring the left-wing victories which will be announced this week. Certainly the most ultra left of the NEC candidates, Liz Davies, fought as a member of the Grassroots Alliance on a prospectus which concealed her true political identity. But it is quite a big part of what has come back to bite the leadership. It also casts doubt on the constant gibes about Mr Blair’s alleged control-freakery; from the Scottish parliament to Wednesday’s NEC results, most of his pressure points, such as they are, stem from being more, not less, democratic than his predecessors.So as the pound soars, and the Prime Minister warns that “There is No Alternative”, are we beginning to see, in embryo form, the tensions over economic policy and the ideological divisions which dogged, in their first two years, the Labour governments elected in both 1964 and 1974 – and which, albeit in very different ways, blew them fatally off course?The answer – disappointingly for those who cannot enter the Winter Gardens without hoping to see a Chancellor bayed at by enraged delegates – is a resounding “No”.Consider the National Executive elections first You might think that Drapergate was history. Not only are even rank-and-file loyalists worried about jobs and the high level of interest rates; now the outcome of that deeply symbolic annual event, the elections to the constituency section of the National Executive Committee have apparently delivered four seats for left-wing critics, and only two to Blairite loyalists.Not only does this amount to a public kick at Mr Blair from his own party; (though a limited one given his supremacy over the rest of the NEC) it also casts doubt on the once widespread assumption that the more you let members have a say, the more they will be inclined to back the leadership against its critics on the left.

On the face of it, this conference, despite the changes which will rob it of much of its old time theatricals, promises to be the tensest Mr Blair has faced since becoming leader.
This is not merely because no one quite knows how the new structure will work. Of these, the most difficult and unconvincing, on the evidence so far, is pluralism. We are not persuaded that New Labour revels in the idea of letting a thousand flowers bloom and a thousand voices speak.. IF TONY Blair feels even slightly nervous, he is making an outstanding job of concealing it. In his interview with The Independent at Chequers on Friday, he could hardly have been more relaxed, focussed, confident, or New Labour. Whenever you think that Mr Blair might be about to make a concession to comfortable, conventional Labour wisdom, he does just the opposite.

Ask him, for instance, whether he agrees that taxes may have to go up in order to meet the need for better public services, and he says thathe is hoping further to reduce them. In a less strategic Prime Minister this behaviour might seem positively reckless. The excessive prescription in education policy should give us pause.Performance on the economy, Europe and the fabric of our democracy would matter less if other parts of Mr Blair’s extravagant rhetoric had not already crumbled on contact with reality. The receding of a Freedom of Information Act is disappointing. The gentleness with which Rupert Murdoch’s monopolistic media tendencies have been treated is depressing. And it means letting go in Scotland, allowing the people to decide their future. As for the way we elect MPs, the case for change is overwhelming; the case for any particular form of change has not yet been made, and needs to fit with changes to the Lords and to the government of the different parts of the United Kingdom.There is, though, much more to pluralism than this.