Getting a blood transfusion from a mummy

So Blair's reshuffled his cabinet (in the same sense that Prescott reshuffles his secretaries), but to what end and with what effect? There is no depth of talent in the Labour Party. Even the old cabinet was looking tired and scrag-endish. The new one looks like a combination between the scrapings of a barrel and the remedial class in a London comprehensive.

John 'Oh fuck not Health' Reid at the Home Office. Reid is like Blair's fireman, running around wherever someone has fucked up more than usually spectacularly. It is therefore a shame that he brings so little ability to complement his undoubted pugnacity. Classic Labour style mix of unpleasant bullying without the competence to justify it.

Prescott retains his DPM role, and his secretary gets fired for indiscretion. He remains an adulterous, boorish thug with the same relation to shit as Midas had to gold.

Brown squats immovable over the Treasury like an enormous toad. His attitude towards the public remains insufferably arrogant, and his tactics in interviews remains that of a six year old sticking her fingers in her ears and shouting 'la la la I can't hear you.' The prospect of this man in no 10 fills me with a dull sense of horror,

And, in the third great office of state, Margaret Beckett, described, ludicrously, by the Beeb as "the safest possible pair of hands" despite presiding over arguably the most shambolic Government department of all. She is truly ghastly. At least Caligula only made his horse a senator, Blair's gone and made his Foreign Secretary.