Somewhere along the way I must have missed something. I had always thought that governing parties wanted mostly to stay in power. Not so, it seems, in Britain. The consuming topic of conversation in Gordon Brown’s Labour party is how best to lose the next general election.

Should Labour ministers and MPs oust the prime minister and go for an early poll under a new leader? Defeat would be all-but-certain, but the margin might just be respectable. Or should they stick with Mr Brown in the hope that something may turn up? That would be to risk a complete rout at the hands of David Cameron’s Tories in 2010. Choices, choices.