Downing Street's famous spin doctors are certainly a much-maligned breed. And perhaps their reputation is undeserved after all.
For as an exercise in "control freakery" the attempt to fix the London mayoral race has been an unmitigated disaster. The instinct to control is still there. But the execution has been a spectacularly botched job, prompting Westminster correspondents to lament the most shambolic performance by New Labour's Mill bank Tendency since Tony Blair assumed the leadership.
Well, truth be told, "lament" is hardly the word for it. The press here is having a field day as New Labour's much-vaunted presentational skills at least temporarily desert command control - buried somewhere deep in the Thames in the yawning gap between the Palace of Westminster and the old County Hall.
No wonder Mr Blair battled for so long to keep Peter Mandelson by his side, thwarting his ambition to progress from party apparatchik to "politician in his own right". One fancies the former "Prince of Darkness" - now undergoing rapid transformation as Ireland's man of peace - would long-since have taken "Red Ken" out of the running with clinical precision.
Not that that, of course, is the admitted name of the Downing Street game. We were assured at the weekend that the Prime Minister had finally abandoned his mission to have Mr Livingstone denied the chance to seek Labour's nomination for next year's mayoral contest. And the spin doctors were on hand yesterday to explain the nominating board's failure to conclude the short-list after more than four hours of agonising. "Ken blew it" was the explanation from party sources, managing almost to sound hurt and disappointed that the former GLC leader's inability to provide straight answers to straight questions had prevented his otherwise assured inclusion on the short-list.
Mr Livingstone was instantly judged to have blown it by his stated opposition to what he terms the "semi-privatisation" of the Tube, which he described as "not negotiable". Certainly the Brent MP's opposition to any role for private finance in the modernisation and rebuilding of the London Underground puts him firmly at odds with government policy.
He asserts that his position on the Tube is wholly in line with mainstream London opinion - which, after recent tragedies and scares, seems entirely believable. Moreover, Mr Livingstone is able to point out that on this issue the Conservative candidate, Lord Archer, is to the left of all the other Labour candidates in wanting the Tube kept wholly in public ownership.
But Labour insiders have a different take, insisting this is about "big picture stuff" and, specifically, about Mr Livingstone's refusal to commit himself to a manifesto framed by the party. According to accounts of Tuesday's interview the nominating panel was completely thrown by an indication that Mr Livingstone, if nominated, would "walk away" if the still-to-be-framed manifesto did not meet with his approval. Clive Soley, the panel chairman, said: "It became apparent . . . that there were aspects of Mr Livingstone's answers which required clarification. In particular, we need to clarify whether or not he would stand down and leave us without a candidate if the manifesto was not to his liking."
Mr Soley, by the way, might have been better advised to seek the clarification he wants at today's meeting, and to have declined an invitation to sit apart from Mr Livingstone and Glenda Jackson in the BBC's Newsnight studio on Tuesday night, discussing the issue while ignoring their presence, and lending a further bizarre dimension to the ongoing farce.
Ahead of this morning's second appearance before the panel, Mr Livingstone insists that a compromise is still possible and again affirms he will not quit Labour to run as an Independent. But it seems pretty clear who he thinks has to compromise: "I am going to try to find a form of words which means I maintain my policy of opposition to partial privatisation of the Tube but we find a way of making it acceptable to the Labour Party."
The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, didn't sound as if he was in the market for that kind of a deal when interviewed on the Today programme. It was all about party democracy, he insisted, and the (not unreasonable) expectation that a candidate selected by the party might accept the party's manifesto. Asked if in truth he wanted to see Mr Livingstone stand as an Independent, Mr Prescott laughingly replied: "Ken is an Independent, always has been."
Words which some cynical observers suspect Glenda Jackson may be hoping prove prophetic. She herself is splendidly outraged by the whole business, and very shrewdly appeared alongside Mr Livingstone on Newsnight to express herself so. Previously an ultra-loyalist, she may very well denounce any decision to banish Mr Livingstone from the race. And she may very well benefit, at least in the constituency section of Labour's electoral college, from such a decision.
After a remarkably unspectacular career as backbencher and minister, Ms Jackson has reclaimed some of the glitz she had so conspicuously discarded. For the first time, she looks as if she's really enjoying politics. And with Ken Livingstone out of the road, who's to say she might not give the Downing Street anointed Frank Dobson a run for his money?