Labour’s rapidly warming official attitude towards the Liberal Democrats

Over on the Spectator website, Peter Hoskin neatly summarises the latest warming in the Labour Party’s official attitude towards the Liberal Democrats:

Remember when MiliE described them as a ‘disgrace to the traditions of liberalism’? Since then he has said that, actually, he’d work with the Lib Dems so long as they ditched Clegg; that he’d work with them even if they kept Clegg; that … oh, you get the picture. And now this [a piece by Douglas Alexander]: the closest that Labour have come, in spirit at least, to matching the ‘big, open, comprehensive offer’ that Cameron made at the end of last year’s general election. The headline of Alexander’s Statesman piece is even that ‘Labour will make a big, open offer to the Lib Dems on Europe’.

I say “official” because it’s not a change of mood that is shared by all in the Labour Party (or indeed, to be fair, welcomed by all in the Liberal Democrats either).