That is how one senior Labour figure described the prospect of a Lib/Lab deal in the event of a hung Parliament, writes Nick Robinson in his BBC blog. It's the clearest sign yet that Gordon Brown and his team are preparing to woo Nick Clegg, having either ignored or belittled him in the recent past.
There is one big problem with this plan though: it is Gordon Brown himself and the history of his dealings with the Lib Dems. Paddy Ashdown has always blamed Brown for scuppering the deal he spent many hours discussing with Tony Blair. It was one reason Ashdown turned down Brown's invitation to join his government in 2007. Similarly, Nick Clegg has sour memories of his conversations with the prime minister on expenses reform and much besides. Both men regard Mr Brown as a Labour tribalist who thinks the Lib Dems should simply pack up shop and join what he regards as the anti-Tory forces.
Interestingly, friends of Gordon now dispute this version of history, insisting that their man was never opposed to electoral reform - nor indeed to a referendum on it. They blame the Lib Dems for overreaching themselves in the late 1990s by insisting that they would only accept one system of proportional representation - what's known as AVplus as opposed to AV, which the Labour party is now holding out on offer. But the Lib Dems do not want to be seen as completing anyone else's mission; given their poll ratings, they now believe that they can achieve their own.
