A Labour landslide on Thursday will be a disaster for Britain. That, at any rate, is the candid view of Mr Derek Draper, onetime adviser to Mr Peter Mandelson.
We may take it the former Northern Ireland Secretary does not agree. "She has some brass neck, that lady," was his cheerful retort to Baroness Thatcher's warning on the dangers of an "elected dictatorship" following a second runaway victory for Mr Blair.
Mr Mandelson was right, of course. But that does not mean Lady Thatcher was necessarily wrong. Mr Mandelson himself knows just how unsentimental New Labour can be. Witness the brutality of his second enforced departure from cabinet, for no apparent reason, at the hands of the friend who purportedly misses him still. And Tories were quick last week to note the changing nature of New Labour's affections.
Back then Mr Blair wrote articles for St George's Day vowing to slay the European dragon and happily invited favourable comparison with the former Iron Maiden. Despairing of John Major, Lady Thatcher had somehow let slip her confidence that young Tony wouldn't let the country down. Mr Blair subsequently invited the Lady to Number 10 to seek her views on defence and other matters.
And if the Labour heartlands found themselves in the sudden grip of raging nausea, apparatchik hearts swelled with pride as some Thatcherite commentators proclaimed Mr Blair her true heir.
How different the story today as unsentimental New Labour moves on. It dumps Lady Thatcher's bouffant hairstyle on young William's bald pate, give him her earrings for good measure and use the whole garish ensemble to mock his inability to escape an era it consigns to a past it hopes finally to bury come Thursday.
In that spirit Mr Mandelson was quick to mock Lady Thatcher's "audacity" for giving precisely the warning - on the potential perils of too large a majority - for which she famously sacked Mr Francis Pym back in 1983.
But even if they thought it a bit rich coming from her, some on Mr Blair's own side share Lady Thatcher's concern about the quality of British democracy if the pollsters prove right and Labour (with a bit of Liberal Democrat help) now push the Tories into meltdown.
Lord (Roy) Hattersley, who started this debate four weeks ago, returned to the theme at the weekend. Despite having outraged his party's high command, he again insisted a Conservative humiliation would have more serious consequences than the end of Mr Hague's career. With a majority of 150 or so, he said, Mr Blair would be free to do what he liked; no backbench revolt would ever be large enough to block his course; and "Parliament will have become a rubber stamp."
In the course of establishing Labour in the centre ground, Lord Hattersley said Mr Blair had done more than eliminate the party's lunatic fringe: "People like me - moderates who nevertheless think Labour should have a distinctive social democratic identity - have been marginalised. If, after the election, Mr Blair walks on water, he will tread on our dreams."
In an article in yesterday's Daily Mail, Mr Draper echoed the concern of Lord Hattersley and the Archbishop of York that a healthy democracy requires strong opposition. A cull of Labour's "sheep-like flock" and the partial reinvigoration of the Tory Party, he reasoned, would force Mr Blair to better define his aims.
"A smaller majority on Thursday (of say 65) would force Blair to come out with some radical solutions for the country's problems and would chasten Millbank," he argued. "A majority of more than 150 would see him coast complacently to retirement."
Not all on the centre-left agreed. Lord (Roy) Jenkins accepted that a restored Conservative Party was ultimately essential for the balance of British politics. However, he argued, the restoration (to the centre ground) first required that the present Conservative Party be "humiliated".
His party leader, Mr Charles Kennedy, said a big Labour win would inevitably see the House of Lords play an increasingly important role and that power over a range of public appointments should be vested in the Commons' Select Committees. That could provide an early and interesting test of the relationship between a second-term Blair government and Mr Kennedy's "ethical" opposition.