Blears goes = beginning of the end

Sorry about that - some technical hang up preventing me blogging the latest stage of disintegration of the Brown government.

I'd just come back after a six day break to ask, sarcastically, if much happened while I was off and "Sky sources" (give them credit) are reporting that Hazel Blears has resigned too.
She follows Jacqui Smith in quitting on her terms.

Her resignation statement is a bit of a stab at the Prime Minister: "I am returning to the grassroots (where I began), to political activism, to the cut and thrust of political debate.
"Most of all I want to help the Labour Party to reconnect with the British people, to remind them that our values are their values, that their hopes and dreams are ours too."

In Westminster-speak that means that Gordon Brown is not connecting with the British people and its beginning to look like a co-ordinated move with rumours of another resignation later this afternoon. That's if we get through the bloodbath that will be Prime Minister's Questions.

It will take more than one Guardian editorial and two or three cabinet resignations to shift Mr Brown. "It ain't over until he goes," says one of the old hands here and it could get worse and worse for Mr Brown over the next few days.

In the midst of this electrical storm I've walked back into its beginning to feel like a question of when not if Mr Brown goes.