The irony is that, had he not jumped, Andrew Smith would not have been pushed - at least not before the general election. When Tony Blair assured the work and pensions secretary last week that his ministerial car was safe, he meant it. The prime minister plans a root-and-branch restructuring of the cabinet after the election. Save for the return of Alan Milburn, he saw little purpose in pre-empting it. Mr Smith's friends in the Treasury imagined otherwise. So, much in the manner of a kamikaze pilot, the pensions secretary sought honour in self-sacrifice.
One thing, though, was clear amid the thick fog of reshuffle acrimony in Downing Street. The government has woken up to the fact that its pensions policy is a mess. More than that, it is a mess that risks alienating not just Old Labour allies in the trade unions, but also the fabled middle classes of middle Britain. Worse still from Mr Blair's perspective, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have been making the intellectual running in coming up with answers.
