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Not out of spite, although that may come into it, but because it is not in his interest to have an heir too apparent, and Brown is already dominant enough among the dauphins. They do not have to like each other or even trust each other. “Like” is not a word politicians use much, and Blair is not exerting himself to ensure Brown’s succession. First, because he could not have been remotely sure of bringing Blair down. Now he will not get another chance for two or three years, and who knows who else will have emerged as a possible successor by then? He might as well go and be head of the IMF.That, I think, is a misreading of Brown’s position.

As Professor Hennessy points out, if Brown had insisted that an explicit resolution of the United Nations was required to justify the invasion of Iraq, then British troops would not have taken part. Brown has prevented Blair from preparing to join the euro, but does anyone think a referendum would have been winnable at any time in the past seven years just because Brown as well as Blair was making the case for it? Blair pre-empted Brown’s spending plans by announcing from David Frost’s sofa that he would match European levels of spending on the health service (a pledge that has fallen behind schedule, but hardly anyone has noticed). But the increase in public spending was a joint strategy and Brown was irritated because he wanted to take the credit for it.Brown came close to destroying the plan for higher student tuition fees, but the critical thing is that, when it came to the point of decision, he did not. But, when it came to the point of decision, he did not.Some of Brown’s supporters among Labour MPs have lost patience with him “He has missed his chance,” one of them says He could have brought Blair down, but he refused to. Not even on the most contentious issues, namely the euro and decisions over taxes and spending. Even Peter Hennessy, the chronicler without compare of the British premiership, has returned baffled from his forays into the deepest recesses of Whitehall. In a recent lecture, he rightly observes that the familiar picture of a “Blair presidency” is inaccurate, and that it is “more of a dual monarchy of a very peculiar kind”.

He comments: “What you really need is a medievalist not a contemporary historian to depict it.”It is a dual monarchy that has never allowed an open breach on policy. It is remarkably difficult to point to ways in which it has affected anything outside the city of words constructed by journalists. Only last week the Argentine Congress debated a Bill seeking to repudiate the odious foreign debt contracted during the military dictatorship of 1976-83. There are rumblings in the Philippines to nullify part of Ferdinand Marcos’s debts for similar reasons. Momentum is building in this direction, whether creditors like it or not.Of course there is a legitimate concern that the cancellation of such odious debts might end up giving present-day corrupt or illegitimate regimes the resultant benefits, rather than the people But we can create mechanisms to deal with this. Because Kavanagh enjoys good access, it is often assumed that his information comes from the Prime Minister.It may do. But the best guess is that Mandelson and MacShane were not deliberately trying to get at Brown, and that the Prime Minister did not plant a report in The Sun as a warning to his Chancellor.