My assessment of the British reshuffle is that Blair’s loss of his most competent ally, Charles Clarke, together with the downfall of his link to Old Labour, John Pescott, have fatally wounded his Ministry. He has been forced to over-promote his last loyal Old Labour figure, Margaret Prescott, and in so doing has had to demote another loyal-but-not-very-good figure in Jack Straw. Blair’s talented allies – Mandelson, Clarke, Blunkett, Milburn, Byers – have all been disgraced or sidelined for one reason or another. Three weeks ago I’d have put good money on him surviving the year and even damaging David Cameron. No longer.

The timing of the scandals, just before the local elections, also suggests that David Cameron has that one essential political quality: luck. He salvaged his leadership campaign and surged to victory on the back of one good speech by himself and one bad speech by his major opponent, David Davis. Now he has recovered from poll numbers no better than before his leadership began to rout Labour in the local elections. In truth, he did very well in London, quite well in the rest of the South, but made no inroads whatsoever in Labour’s heartland in the North. The way the electoral system works, he needs to attract Northern voters away from Labour before Gordon Brown gets very worried. One thing the local elections showed was that he can’t rely on the Liberal Democrats to do that for him. It’s a good start, but there’s a lot more to do, and what worked in the South won’t necessarily work in the North. Tim Montgomerie has more on this point.