With Labour all at sea and rumours of mutiny clouding round Captain Gordon Brown, is his old flagship, HMS Tax Credits, heading for the breaker's yard? Word is that many in Whitehall now believe that this once-vaunted policy is unseaworthy - so much so that insiders expect it to be scuttled by the next government. (Meaning the Tories? "Possibly," says one senior figure. "Or possibly by a Labour prime minister who is not Gordon Brown.") Snippets emerging from insiders suggest tax credits were doomed to disaster from their launch five years ago.

They were the brainchild of Mr Brown when he was chancellor. He wanted to end the stigma associated with benefits and bring everyone into the tax system under his ever more powerful Treasury. Tax credits started just before the Inland Revenue was merged with Customs. Who looked after the merger? As former top official Sir Richard Mottram pointed out to MPs this month, the man responsible was Sir Gus O'Donnell, then top official at the Treasury and now cabinet secretary. I am told Sir Gus sounded out various private sector men about his merger plans. One said they would not work, others said they might - but they did not want to be quoted officially. Sir David Varney, who had worked for Shell and for O 2 , commended Sir Gus's report - and became the first chairman of the new Revenue & Customs.