Dr Mo Mowlam has survived immediate unionist demands for her dismissal, and will remain in the Stormont hot-seat for the publication of the Patten Report on the RUC and the review of the Belfast Agreement.
But speculation about Dr Mowlam's longer-term future, and that of other ministers, will continue unabated after last night's cabinet "reshuffle" left all but one member of Mr Tony Blair's government in place.
The one enforced move brought promotion for Mr Paul Murphy, who leaves his Political Development post at the Northern Ireland Office to become Secretary of State for Wales. Mr Murphy replaces Mr Alun Michael, who had promised to quit his cabinet post on becoming First Secretary of the Welsh Assembly.
With that less-than-seismic-shift in political power, Downing Street last night mocked the expectant press corps as Mr Blair proceeded into "a night of the short knives" and a clear-out in the middle and lower ranks of his administration.
"It was never the intention of the Prime Minister to carry out a major reshuffle at this stage, whatever the welter of press reports to the contrary," insisted Mr Blair's official spokesman.
However, this left political journalists and commentators to wonder why, if that had been the case, Number 10's famed spin doctors had failed to stop so much damaging speculation over recent weeks. That speculation - and the suspicion that it was being fed by government insiders - first prompted the Health Secretary, Mr Frank Dobson, and then Dr Mowlam, to breach cabinet protocol with public assertions that they wished to remain in their present posts.
Even yesterday a head of steam was allowed to develop around suggestions that the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr John Prescott, might lose some of his ministerial empire after a damning critique from the House of Commons Select Committee on Transport.
The view emerging at Westminster last night was that Mr Dobson's unwillingness to seek Labour's nomination for Mayor of London, and the absence of a sufficiently prestigious alternative with which to entice Dr Mowlam, had denied Mr Blair the necessary room for manoeuvre at this time. Moreover, if as seems likely, the range of Mr Prescott's brief features in Mr Blair's longer-term calculations, the feeling was that the very timing of the report would have been a further argument for delay.
However, as the Tories accused Mr Blair of having "wobbled", the effect of all that was to signal an early resumption of the speculation, so detested by Mr Blair, about what cabinet changes he eventually will make when he considers the time is right.
One possibility being canvassed last night was that a further shake-up could come in the autumn. Labour is due to select its London mayoral candidate in October. And despite his continued resistance, the belief remains that Mr Blair regards Mr Dobson as the candidate most likely to halt the ambitions of the veteran left-winger, Mr Ken Livingstone.
So Mr Dobson's departure could still open the way for even a limited reshuffle, which again could feature Dr Mowlam - crucially in a changed political context, free of any suggestion that her departure could be seen as a concession to Mr David Trimble.
Gerry Moriarty adds from Bel- fast: Mr Jeffrey Donaldson, the Ulster Unionist MP for Lagan Valley, said it was clear that in Dr Mowlam's two-year term in office that she had "leant more to unionists than to nationalists". However, in terms of the September review negotiations, he believed Mr Blair's decision was academic.
A Sinn Fein spokesman said it was the party's preference that no British Minister would be present in the North. However, Dr Mowlam had "possibly been the most positive Secretary of State that has been here", he added.