Once again, reshuffle fever is sweeping through Westminster. Admittedly, Tony Blair has spoilt the lobby hacks' fun by doing away with the regular July shuffle. That has prevented three months of lurid speculation. But sorry, Tony, it just won't go away. Gather a small group of MPs, or listen to the government drivers - always the most reliable source of gossip - and you find that the talk is all of who's going where and when. One evening last week, the Downing Street press office was kept up half the night after rumours swept Westminster that a re-shuffle was imminent.
Blair does have some tidying up to do before he faces the electorate. First, there's the question of Mo Mowlam. Blair has publicly said that she will stay in the Cabinet until she stands down at the next election. But increasingly, her colleagues see a problem. They say she is disengaged and unfocused at every meeting she attends. She has also made clear her intention to write her memoirs; unless she goes soon, ministers must surely feel inhibited about what they say in front of her. Mowlam has never been one to bite her tongue - and that was when she was on the way up. Now, with nothing to lose, she is more likely than not to make some serious gaffe or other. Her riotous condemnation of the Dome at a West End comedy club a few weeks ago gave a hint of what could lie ahead.
Then, there's Charlie Falconer. Poor Lord Falconer. I can quite see why Blair doesn't want to lose him. The Daily Mail may portray him as an overweight, complacent, unelected crony, but he has been a valuable asset in government. He brings a lawyer's forensic skills to an argument, he fights his corner well and he is delightfully unpompous, regaling dinner guests with self-mocking stories of how his children tease him when unflattering pictures of him appear in the papers.
But - and it's a crucial but - the Dome, as everyone now admits, has been an expensive flop, and in its new, listening, "I feel your pain" mode, the government has to be seen to be sorry. Falconer's head must go on the block, no matter how personable he is. Better for him. Better for Blair. Better for the government as a whole. It looks as though the Prime Minister is finally realising this.
Blair is less willing to give up another very close friend and adviser, Peter Mandelson. Ministers who are not involved in the regular and now very public backbiting that goes on are proclaiming how much less bitchy life has been since Mandelson was despatched to Northern Ireland. Blair, however, is determined to have him back in London. True, his campaigning skills are second to none, and he and Gordon Brown, on the evidence of the last election, seem able to bury their mutual hatred sufficiently to fight a campaign. So, Mandelson returns, either to the denuded Cabinet Office - after the departure of Falconer and Mowlam - or to Culture, Media and Sport.
Which raises the question of the present Culture Secretary, Chris Smith - who is also being hounded by the press. Smith is presiding over the National Lottery fiasco, which shows all the signs of turning into another Dome-like disaster. He has also been bowled over and trampled on by Greg Dyke at the BBC, over the timing of the evening news bulletin. Smith is looking like a weak link - and this is not a time for soft-heartedness.
There are two obvious replacements for Mandelson at Northern Ireland. What's needed is a fixer, and the two best fixers in the party are John Reid, the Scottish Secretary, and Charles Clarke, now at the Home Office. Reid has recently been much in evidence in Downing Street and in the television studios - he is regarded as a very safe pair of hands, and isn't afraid to break a few knuckles. A strong negotiator, he could be just the person to salvage the peace process in Northern Ireland, though he is also being talked of as a possible successor to Donald Dewar as Scotland's First Minister. Charles Clarke, Neil Kinnock's former chief of staff, is no shrinking violet when it comes to knocking heads together, either - his promotion to the Cabinet must come soon, and Northern Ireland would be a good place for him to start. Mike O'Brien is another minister hotly tipped for a step up.
Who else comes in? After the cacophony in recent months from Labour's women, Blair and the No 10 lads have finally got the message that they're not doing enough for the girls. So, there's likely to be one woman promoted to the Cabinet to replace Mowlam, and possibly another, too. Patricia Hewitt, also a former Kinnock aide, is highly rated, having got her head around e-commerce as successfully as she took on the financial portfolio at the Treasury. Helen Liddell would solve two problems at once, being both a Scot (should there be a vacancy at the Scottish Office) and a woman. Tessa Jowell and Estelle Morris should also have high hopes of promotion.
Will Blair go further and risk a switch-around of the big hitters? It's unlikely. Moving Robin Cook would be risky until the euro-referendum had either safely happened or been kicked into the waist-high grass. But there's no doubt where our friend Peter would like to end up in due course. Next time round, he and Jack Straw are the most obvious contenders for the Foreign Office. Should Mandelson win, it would create the fascinating scenario after the next election of the tangled triangle of Blair, Brown and Mandelson in the top three jobs.
For now, though, some less drastic surgery is all that is required. A bit of fresh blood and a few sacrificial beheadings are all it would take to refresh the government. The rumour-mongers may still turn out to be wrong. But Blair has taken a knock to his prestige, with those embarrassments over fuel, the Dome and pensions; he cannot afford to be seen among his colleagues as a squeamish, nervous butcher, too.
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