The hard and unforgiving stones on Brighton beach at least prevented Labour burying its head in sand this week. From the Cabinet down, there is widespread acknowledgement, sometimes explicit but more often implicit, that the party is heading for defeat.

MPs in marginal constituencies gather in bars to discuss what they will do when, not if, they lose their seats.

Over dinner, ministers begin to talk about life after government, before stopping themselves mid-sentence. Others are engaged in what might be called “pre-mortem” — in which the reasons for Labour’s rule coming to an end will be painstakingly dissected.

Many Blairites who believe Gordon Brown’s leadership is a significant cause of the imminent demise have all but given up seeking to remove him.

Some of his most prominent critics have been notable for their absence. Stephen Byers, Hazel Blears and John Reid appeared in Brighton fleetingly, if at all, this week. Charles Clarke, the former Cabinet minister who continues to call for a new leader to prevent catastrophe, cuts a lonely figure.

One serving but “semi-detached” minister found an excuse to rush back to London rather than watch Mr Brown speak on Tuesday. Friends of Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary — who stayed loyal this summer, even when he was widely touted as the probable replacement — are now saying that he will not stand for the leadership after the election, when “it will be the turn of a younger generation”. James Purnell, who dramatically quit the Cabinet and told the Prime Minister to go in June, has endured an uneasy time since promising to remain in politics, while privately agonising about whether he will.

There are plenty of senior figures who suggest that holding the Conservatives to a majority of between 30 and 40 would, in the current circumstan-ces, be an acceptable result.

Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary, began a fringe meeting speech by saying: “I used to be an academic, and probably will be again at some point in the near future, but, for the moment, I’m a politician.”

Acknowledging he “may be about to join” those who have held his post for less than a year, Lord Adonis warned that a £30 billion plan for a high-speed rail link between London and Glasgow would be stillborn unless he can reach consensus with the Tories.

The Left, as it rehearses a familiar refrain of betrayal, underscored the sense of doom at a meeting of the Labour Representation Committee this week. Mark Serwotka, leader of the Public and Commercial Service union, threatened to field socialist candidates against Mr Purnell and the Business Minister Pat McFadden before warning that “a Conservative government is almost inevitable”. A few, however, still growl defiance at “defeatist talk”. Jon Cruddas, the former deputy leadership candidate, sat on the seafront yesterday discussing how to “expose the reality of Conservative local authorities”. Lord Kinnock, the former leader, has bitter memories of the “self-indulgence” of both Left and Right almost destroying Labour after it lost power in 1979. The recent behaviour of Mr Clarke, his chief of staff for much of the 1980s, was “very sad — incomprehensible to me”, he said yesterday.

As someone who knows better than most Labour politicians the pain of losing, he insisted Labour can, and must, win. “I would not recommend my experience to anyone. But that ignominy has one character-building advantage: it can make steel out of plastic.”

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