Tony Blair is facing another rebellion. His education reforms are at risk. Labour’s traditional supporters are up in arms, and many MPs are still prepared to give the Prime Minister a bloody nose.

As John Major discovered after 1992, losing a landslide majority makes Government more challenging. Rebels have more influence. As Match of the Day’s John Motson would say, the big decisions are all six-pointers.

But Blair has only himself to blame. He threw away his huge majority a year early. Yet none of the political commentators has noticed that the PM’s recent Commons traumas could have been avoided by allowing the 2001 parliament to run its course. They’re all insiders. You can’t expect them to notice the obvious!