BRITAIN: Labour's recent byelection defeat in chancellor Gordon Brown's Scottish fiefdom has put new pressure on the prime minister in waiting, writes Frank Millar, London Editor
Gordon Brown will have to resume his proper place in the House of Commons this afternoon. He and Tony Blair may be offering the British people a unique constitutional experiment with some form of "dual premiership" - but there is still only one prime minister and one first lord of the treasury.
Speaker Michael Martin at least then will be under no illusions when he calls Mr Blair to the despatch box at question time. However, the Tories, in the absence of David Cameron, will doubtless seek to exploit the latest evidence of the chancellor's impatience to assume command.
At the same time the Liberal Democrats - having surprised themselves and everybody else - will be ready to taunt Mr Brown's pretension in the aftermath of last week's Labour collapse in his byelection backyard of Dunfermline and West Fife.
Meanwhile, Labour MPs anxious for a smooth and early transition will watch and wonder if the heir presumptive may be required to pay too high a price for Mr Blair's willingness to have Mr Brown stake his claim so publicly, with no clue yet as to any intended date for an actual handover of power.
It does look as if this is a genuine Blair/Brown collaboration which has the chancellor straying far beyond his treasury brief, free to intrude into every aspect of government as he prepares for a nationwide tour making big speeches setting out his personal agenda as future prime minister.
However, past experience would advise caution over reports that things are once again good between Tony and Gordon, and that they are back in partnership, galvanised by the threat of a Conservative Party seemingly resurgent under Mr Cameron's "compassionate" leadership.
It wasn't difficult last Friday to find Blairite loyalists swift to confirm Labour's defeat in Dunfermline was "bad news for Gordon", a consequence of organisational failure in the chancellor's Scottish fiefdom. And there are many commentators, not all of them signed-up Brownites, convinced that Mr Blair would still like to stitch up a man so publicly eager to elbow him aside.
Nor need one be a conspiracy theorist to see the risks for Mr Brown. The chancellor might be happy to disport himself as prime minister in waiting, addressing issues of national security, questioning the sincerity and seriousness of a new-found Tory antipathy to this government's authoritarian instincts.
Yet the realities of power and its current distribution can bring him up short. So, for example, while he hints strongly on the BBC that he would like to see a new single national security ministry established, he cannot actually answer the question when put to him directly, for the obvious reason that he hasn't cleared it with Mr Blair. This is precisely the fear of many eager to see Labour renew itself in office under a Brown premiership; that loyalty to the Blair agenda is the price for the liberty to set out his stall, so inevitably disappointing those who anticipate something different when the change comes.
Not the least worrying for such people is the news (which they are sure didn't come from the Brown camp) that Blair's former communications director Alastair Campbell is helping prepare the chancellor for the transition. "This is not good news," says one Labour expert, recalling that "trust" was a major factor in last year's general election and that Brown's task is to somehow distinguish himself from what has gone before.
And it is perhaps the application of New Labour's old spin-doctoring techniques now on Brown's behalf which is proving the most discomfiting. As in the arguments over education policy, Blairites can rightly argue it is not in Brown's interests to inherit a divided party which rejects "reform" and appears to redefine itself as something other than "New Labour". Yet it has to be a mistake to let the British public know attempts are being made to "humanise" the Brown appeal.
Personal charm is hardly going to be the strongest asset of a man whose obvious pitch is weight and authority - and the promise that he will amount to something more than Blair Mark II. The prime minister in waiting would be better advised to simply wait.