There is an unmistakable feeling of fin de regime about the Blair government these days. Nothing seems to go right, the wagons are circled, there is a seeping away of authority. The cash-for-honours fallout, most recently last week's second interview of the prime minister "as a witness, not a suspect", is only the latest manifestation. There is a sense as days pass of a man clinging forlornly to power, not even for its own sake but to fashion a legacy for history. And yet, ironically, by delaying his departure what Tony Blair may well be remembered for is this drawn-out death agony, rather than the reshaping of British politics with which the long view of history will rightly credit him. Not least, it must be acknowledged on this side of the Irish Sea, his contribution to the peace process.
Even loyalists like the Labour Party chairwoman, Hazel Blears, are despairing publicly, with talk of the "corrosive" effect of the drawn-out succession process.
One aide arrested, might be dismissed as bad luck. Two, and we are beginning to get the whiff of conspiracy. Ninety have been questioned, four while under arrest. One, it was announced yesterday, will not be charged, but two of the arrested are Blair inner-circle. Lord Levy, around whom suspicions now appear to swirl (with the aid, please note, of a decidedly leaky police team), is the party's chief fundraiser and close to Mr Blair personally.
Watergate-like, the police concern is now said to be not the original alleged canvassing of cash for the party in exchange for honours, but an attempt to cover up any such promises. No trial is likely to take place until after Mr Blair has left Downing Street, but the mud sticks, and Labour will find it impossible ahead of local, Welsh, and Scottish elections in May to restore the squeaky clean image that helped bring it to power back in 1997.
One commentator has talked of ministers "running amok". One joined a demonstration against hospital closures. The attorney general's conduct is under scrutiny over the government's decision to kill off a serious fraud office's inquiry into allegations BAE bribed Saudi royals. Home secretary John Reid is at war with the judges over sentencing and under flak from predecessors over plans to split the home office. The list goes on. Even the armed forces are mutinous. Other ministers have been equivocal on their own Iraq policy, and you cannot get much closer to Mr Blair's raison d'etre than that. Except perhaps Peter Hain's disparaging of US foreign policy. "Et tu Brute!"
The prime minister soldiers on. "I'm not going to beg for my character in front of anyone," he told the BBC on Friday. But, although a Times poll yesterday found support for the party has risen by a percentage point to 33 per cent since the beginning of last month, 49 per cent said he should go now. The reality is, of course, that no-one in the party really wants him to go before the May elections. After that they will be counting the days.
Mr Blair will have been in Downing Street 10 years on May 2nd. It feels like 15.