The huge administrative reorganisation that may be necessary if Labour is to deliver its spending promises is put on hold because the prime minister is busy elsewhere. Michael Portillo's charge that the government is dithering is hard to rebut, hypocritical though the Tories are to make it. Ministers' diaries have emptied. The machinery of state is stalled. A deathly calm hangs over the corridors of power - and this situation of stasis looks like it will last even longer now.
Conservatives believe less government is better government.
Social democrats ought to spend their waking hours thinking of ways in which the power of the state can be harnessed to national improvement and the pursuit of social justice. To govern is to legislate. Within 48 hours Mr Blair must put us out of our misery. We have given up on dancing round the Maypole. Mustering enthusiasm for a canter round a June poll is not going to be easy.