What are Clarke and Milburn really up to?

Nick Robinson comments interestingly, as always, on the Milburn-Clarke initiative first reported in this morning's Times.

But he accepts their premise and I am not at all sure he is right to.

Milburn and Clarke say that they believe that Labour's deficiency is the lack of fresh policy thinking and the lack of debate about the future. Nick accepts this idea.

But the real problem for Labour, and particularly for Gordon Brown, is not a lack of policy ideas. It is the lack of a narrative, of a story that links who they are to what they will do.

And this will not emerge out of a debate organised by two former ministers. It will be forged by a leader who understands how to relate his or own story to their ambitions in office.

I think Clarke and Milburn understand this. Which is why they are not really organising a debate about policy. They are putting out a job ad and hoping a leadership candidate will apply.