Douglas Alexander, Brown's campaign deputy, is literally his right-hand man. Pollster Philip Gould is armed with focus group results, spin doctor David Hill with an analysis of broadcasting and newspaper headlines. Party apparatchiks Pat McFadden, Spencer Livermore and Sally Dobson, daughter ofthe former health secretary Frank, usually attend. Criticism of the campaign in the media, fuelled in part from carping on the inside by disaffected members, produces hurt responses from most in Millbank. There is the campaign we are fighting in and the campaign we read about.
Morale is incredibly high.
Almost everybody in the place is surprised and mystified at what has been said. William Hague at the head of a discredited Tory party is a tempting reply. Labour's campaign has certainly had its own goals. The hostile responses to Mr Blair's election announcement at a girls' school and stage-managed visits took Millbank by surprise, the row over women on platforms should have been avoided, while panic over John Prescott's punch was laughed off as an unlikely plus only once the positive public reaction had been detected. His critics in turn are said by the chancellor's allies to be nit-picking and seeking to score cheap points, ignoring the unprecedented position Labour is in.