Stasis

Recently I've actually been warming to the Conservative Party. Not, of course, because of Cokehead Cameron and his 'Tony Blair without spin (or policies)' appeal. But because the Tories would have sorted out a leader as divisive and redundant as Blair a long time ago. A few secretive meetings and said leader would be floating in a gutter with a knife in his back. Then we wouldn't have had to endure a week as monumentally fatuous as this last one. And journalists, instead of spending their time gossiping in Westminster bars, might actually do some proper reporting. For example, telling us about what appears to be an actual war being fought by British troops in Afghanistan.

Which would be a bit tough on the journalists, of course. But the Blair-Brown feud grew tedious about five years ago. There's no word for it now. The nadir (to date; I'm sure it will sink lower) had to be Charles Clarke criticising Brown for laughing after a meeting with Blair. This would be an astonishing non-story whoever said it - but Charles Clarke? The man booted out of the Home Office not because he'd been shagging his secretary but because he was simply no good at his job. Why does he imagine anyone cares now what he thinks about anything? More to the point, why do they?

Clarke's fall partially explains why there's no end in sight to this business. None of Blair's allies, the people he might have willingly handed power to, have lasted the course. Alan Milburn was even less competent than Clarke. David Blunkett has become a highly entertaining disaster area. John Prescott gave up long ago even trying to persuade people that he has any credibility, Peter Mandelson likewise for honesty. Only Gordon Brown has remained. Who was actually promised the job, who has propped up this Labour administration from the start but who, judging from the way he's treated, seems to have stolen Blair's lunch money when they were at school.

And until he finds a sucessor he trusts, Blair clearly doesn't want to go. Every piece of ground he concedes on the issue is miniscule and reluctant. He says he will go in a year. He hasn't actually set a date though, because apparently he wants an orderly transition. Normally that requires actually knowing when the transition will occur, but I'm not sure that that really masters here. In a year's time he'll probably say he'll go within a year again, and this time promising not to cross his fingers. Meanwhile Brown daren't act openly while he's still so obviously the only one who will benefit. It's considered acceptable to have naked ambition in Westminster. But acting on it is still seen as bad form.

So here we're all stuck. Blair and Brown, Brown and Blair. The one a fraction to the left of the centre ground or the one a fraction to the right. Perhaps the most long-lasting, subtle and, above all, spectacularly dull feud in the entire history of British politics.