Members of the Cabinet rally to Brown

And, like the jellyfish in the picture, they have not a backbone between them, although John Hutton did the right thing by declining to take any further part in what is plainly turning into some sort of Edgar Allen Poe story of strangeness and obsession. Like many Poe stories, it will be short: not more than a year long in fact. It may yet be very short, but Gordy can draw breath for a few hours more at least.

What is it with this guy? Politicians need self-belief but don't they need self-knowledge too? There is a sense obvious to all observers and the electorate that this is more than mere obstinacy. It is a refusal to accept reality and a clinging to the notion that a hopeless position can be reversed, that the economy will swing back around, that one more pre-election Budget can deliver the goods, that it can be business as usual at some point if he can only hang on. Except it can't possibly happen.

What might happen is this: if Brown is dumped and replaced by Alan Johnson, some seats could be saved - electoral disaster rather than electoral catastrophe - but if not, if the public mood is ignored, party divisions ignored, and there are many more months of lame duckery, the electorate will be rightly and determinedly merciless. A simple choice: save a few seats or nosedive into oblivion, in-fighting and a scrap with the Liberals for the right to be the third party, at least in terms of the degree to which any attention is paid to its utterances or policies.

Meanwhile, just heap up the odium, ridicule and contempt by appointing Sir Alan Sugar into a business cheer leading role. If that man is supposed to represent the Government in any capacity, what does it say about Gordy's attitude to bullying of underlings and misogyny?