I've been reading the reissued novel A Very British Coup by Chris Mullin, first published in 1982. It's uncomfortable reading for the young Labour party member like myself, 18 when New Labour came to power, who joined the party the year Tony Blair became leader. This is not because it's badly written (though it is) but because you find yourself unsure of quite who it is you're supporting. Is it the former Sheffield steel worker Harry Perkins, elected on promises of withdrawal from the common market, import controls, public control of finance, abolition of the House of Lords, withdrawal from Nato and the expulsion of all foreign bases from British soil? Or is it the underhand tactics of the media and secret services, led by Sir Peregrine Craddock and his cronies in the gentlemans' clubs of St James and Mayfair, who are determined to bring down Perkins's government by whatever means necessary and who eventually succeed through the really rather simple means of an old love affair.

Well, I thought, seeing Perkins's list, I agree with much of that. Abolition of public schools you say? Quite right. Dismantle newspaper monopolies? Absolutely. Use the House of Commons as a storehouse for manure? Hear hear (oh, different book - still, good idea anyway). Aaaaaargh: that's when I realised that's not what Tony wants me to think. The current government isn't Harry Perkins. The current government is the reformed Labour party run by Lawrence Wainwright, Perkins's chancellor, who is secretly on Craddock's payroll and who, on being asked by the King to form a government, retracts demands for America to withdraw its military bases from Britain and says we will only renounce nuclear weapons when the Russians do. Which is what I agree with, isn't it? Aaaaaaargh: I'm all confused. Chris Mullin - what have you done? It's enough to turn anyone into a Liberal Democrat.

Of course the political context in which the book was published in 1982 was very different to that of now, or of 1997. I'm told that a Labour party led by Tony Benn (not quite a Sheffield steel worker but, well, he'll do) was a very real likelihood. "Was it really possible daddy?" I asked. "Absolutely," he said, dreamily.

Chris Mullin is now MP for Sunderland South and has been since 1987. He is a frequent rebel against the government and doesn't seem too concerned by the self-probing questions his book causes for supporters of the current government. So concerned am I, however, that I'm off to puzzle where this leaves me with a few of my new Labour cronies, possibly with some socialist champagne at a private members' club.