Last night saw another very public date between Jon Cruddas and James Purnell: the 16th birthday party of the thinktank Demos.
Purnell made a few comments to mark the birthday and reprised his ambition for an "egalitarian capitalism"; Cruddas was standing in the audience, next to a table full of gazpacho and garlic bread, nodding sagely at Purnell's points.
What else to report to followers of the Cruddas-Purnell ticket?
A new Demos advisory board unveiled last night (distinctly liberal in hue) has Cruddas on it and, organisers say, Purnell would have been on their invite list, too, but for the fact ministerial probity dictates he wouldn't have been able to accept. There's a report on the horizon, possibly involving both politicians.
And arguably more importantly, support for the idea in the party is gaining. The room was stuffed with a firmament of politicians and among them a Labour grandee with one choice remark. "Why don't James and Jon grow some balls and get together and challenge GB?" he said to me.
I think that is a little hasty but friends of the two men say there are moves afoot. A friend of both Cruddas and Purnell assures me the proverbials are being, ehem, grown: "It's happening."
