They say that if you get trapped in quicksand you should not struggle. You must remain very still and wait for help.  Nobody has told Stephen Byers. The wretched transport minister has been flailing around for weeks now. It's a horrible sight. Every wave of the arms takes him an inch further down into the inky morass.    And nobody has thrown him a rope. The onlookers are all on firm, safe ground, gazing at the dreadful spectacle.   Take Harry Cohen, the MP for Leyton. He was one of the many Labour MPs who were in the chamber for transport questions, no doubt to give Mr Byers the support he so badly needs.   There was no sign of his celebrated press secretary, Jo Moore. Possibly she had decided that this would prove to be a good day to bury a bad minister.   Mr Cohen was in no mood to offer any support at all. He was furious about the public-private partnership for the London Underground. No wonder. He is a London MP. It's his constituents who will   suffer. The scheme was, he said, "shaping up to be a disaster". The deals were so appalling that contractors could underperform for years and still get big bonuses.   Then after seven years of incompetence, they could re-negotiate their contracts from a monopoly position. What's more they would stick to their own priorities, which had nothing to do with the priorities of passengers.   Mr Byers must have felt like a man in a mire who expected planking to be laid out for his escape, but instead felt the tentacle of an octopus wrap around his leg.   He blathered about 15bn investment in 13 years, but didn't answer Mr Cohen's charges.    Next it was the Tories' turn to make him squirm some more. Sir Sidney Chapman made the point that investment in the tube had been far less since 1997 than it had been in the equivalent period before 1997. Would Mr Byers confirm that?   Did he confirm it? Oh, grow up. He renewed his struggles. "I think the issue is ..." he began to Tory jeers and Labour silence. "I will answer that question on my own terms!" he said, to louder Tory jeers, and, in its own way, even louder Labour silence.   But he had not finished waving his limbs at us. Thrash, bang, wallop, arghhhh! "We don't want a future of all our yesterdays, in which people blame each   other! It is not a time to re-write history, but to look forward and deliver the investment Londoners so badly need!"   A time to look forward? Not a time to dwell on all our yesterdays and blame the Tories for everything? What is the party for if it isn't about re-writing history? As Paul Flynn MP once wrote: "In New Labour it is only the future that is certain. The past is continually changing." Mr Byers would really love to blame the inactivity of John Prescott for all his travails, but that's not allowed.   The hubbub grew. Vincent Cable, a Lib Dem, asked if it was true that government money for public transport would in future be tied to   binding arbitration to stop strikes.   Mr Byers gathered about himself what dignity a drowning man can manage, and announced: "The prime minister's official spokesman, and the prime minister himself, which is probably more important ..."   The rest of his reply was drowned in mocking cries of "No, he isn't", "don't be silly" and so on.   At this point I looked up at the civil servants who have the unhappy task of staffing the press office for Mr Byers. Of the four of them, three were laughing. You know that when the civil service joins in the general delight, the sand is about to close over your head.