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Labour eyes aren't smiling these days. Then again the pairs of Labour eyes I've stared into recently aren't half as downcast as they were some months ago.

Back then I spoke to one key party man who seemed to have recognised an inevitable truth. It really was time for Welsh Labour to cut their losses, stop wasting their energies and sparse resources on trying to hold on to seats that were patently goners. Give up on Cardiff North. Give up on the Vale of Glamorgan. Start digging your heels in and digging trenches in seats where sitting Labour MPs haven't had a fight on their hands ever before.

Be realistic. Minimise losses. That was the mood, the message, the gameplan that was forming.

Then a few days ago the same pair of eyes told a different story. Change of plan, they said. It's game on. Have you seen the way the polls are heading? Have you heard the new found confidence in the voices of some Welsh MPs who last year had given up the ghost? We're not giving up on a single Welsh seat.

There is a logic here, of course.

Even if you think they truly are goners and the bookies have long since given them to the Tories why give up on seats where there'll be another fight in the Assembly election this time next year? Doesn't it make sense to ensure the damage is contained, so that the next candidate into the fray has less lost territory to claw back?

So how do you do it? How does Welsh Labour tackle this election?

Come on, you know the answer to that. At least if you've been listening to the boy at the front of the class, Peter Hain, you should know. The Welsh Secretary's been laying it on the line for a while now.

You turn this into a straight fight between you and the Tories.

Lib Dems? Irrelevant, barely worthy of a mention.

Plaid? A wasted vote, a back-door pass into Number Ten for David Cameron, a vote Labour could to with picking up.

There'll be constituencies where that argument doesn't work, of course. There it's up to the local campaign to pick their own fights - .

But look at the big picture. Labour's best chance is to make this an us and them election and trust that 'they' have still failed to seal the bargain with 'us' the voters. A vain hope, you might argue but are you sure? Labour are sensing, hoping that you're not as sure as you were.

Watch tonight's Party Political Broadcast with interest.

I haven't, of course, seen it but I've heard a bit about what it might look like. On the eve of Welsh Labour's pre-election conference in Swansea the picture I have in my mind's eye (the eyes have it in this blog entry) is this: that nice, cuddly, Welsh speaking Labour leader and First Minister Carwyn Jones staring at Plaid and Lib Dem voters, warning them that a vote for anyone other than Labour at this election will lead to a Conservative future. Come on guys, you don't want to be responsible for letting that happen, do you?

We don't expect you to betray your principles, of course not. But look at it this way, our principle of fairness for all is yours too, isn't it? And you agree with us that if those Tories get in, they'll slash and cut and ... like us, you don't want that to happen, do you? So you see a vote for Labour makes sense. Just this once.

Then it'll be the Welsh Secretary's opportunity to turn the screw. This is between us and them. You're either with us or you're against us and you can't afford to be against us this time. A combination, then, of dishing out what Labour would regard as some ugly truths alongside the love-bombing of non-Tory voters.

It seems rather appropriate, doesn't it ... that Labour are heading off to Swansea, the "ugly, lovely town."

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