It's their party, and they'll crow if they want to. And who could blame them? Time enough for the hairshirts to come. Yesterday, Labour delegates (and a few comrades, still) gathered in Brighton for the party's first conference as the party of government in 19 years.
And John Prescott was under licence from Tony Blair to let rip.
"Tony reminds us that we can't be complacent," announced deputy Prescott to a nod of prime ministerial approval. "And we can't have any triumphalists." Pause for dramatic effect and a second reverential glance toward the leader. "Oh sod it, yes we can." On cue, Mr Blair led the delighted laughter.
It was vintage Prescott, and about as spontaneous as New Labour gets. "We did it, didn't we? We did it," he declared, his heart bursting with pride, as he wallowed unashamedly in the tumbling (or - you can never be quite sure with Mr Prescott - was it humbling?) of William Waldegrave, Edwina Currie, David Mellor and Michael Portillo.
Minutes earlier, this year's conference chair, Robin Cook, recalled a different cast list of the Tory fallen as he presented the ethical framework for all this gloating.
With an eye on the main business of the day - those internal party reforms which opponents claim will concentrate power in the hands of the leadership and subvert the sovereignty of conference - Mr Cook explained the imperative behind Mr Blair's continuing drive for modernisation.
There was one small part of Britain stubbornly out of touch, beyond the reach, even, of New Labour: the Tory Party. They hadn't grasped the electorate's message of May 1st. Some apparently had failed to notice anything at all had happened. When he answered the telephone in his official residence the other week, the Foreign Secretary found a Tory MP wanting to speak to Douglas Hurd. The Tories were all shadows now, he said: "I've got one myself: Michael Howard. The man Ann Widdecombe called a creature of the night, now fittingly also a creature of the shadows."
Mr Howard had made a speech last month warning Tories not to ditch their policies just because the electorate didn't like them. "We can leave our ice axes at home. We are climbing Snowdon not Everest."
Sorry Michael, offered Robin: "The Tory party is not climbing anywhere. It is slipping down the Astraglide. We are faced with an opposition that cannot find a new idea for its policy, led by a man who cannot find a publisher for his biography."
Ouch! They liked that. And the next bit more. "The Tory party is in a state of collective denial. It needs therapy. And any analyst will tell you the best therapy for denial is to relive the trauma. We must help the Tory Party come to terms with reality by making them go through the experience of electoral defeat again. And again. We must keep them in opposition while we get on with making Britain better."
We knew, of course, it was just for the day. Mr Blair will be back on the modest, listening, caring and inclusive trail this afternoon. But for all those faintly worried about the threatened creation of "new" politics and the end of tribalism, it was cheering to discover that the old instincts still rage close to the surface. And to learn, from Mr Prescott, that for all the talk of realignment and consensus, lots of Labourites still comprehensively detest the Liberal Democrats.
Good old plain-speaking John told it like it was. "When the Liberal Democrats celebrate their 46 MPs and call them on stage at Eastbourne . . . just remember there wasn't a meeting room in Westminster big enough to hold all our MPs. So, Paddy, let's get it into perspective." Sucks, yah-boo to you!