How long can the governance of Britain be paralysed like this by gang warfare?

'Gordon Brown today proposed a bold new Marshall Plan for the Third World that will involve full debt relief for poor nations, a rewriting of global trade rules and an international aid fund that would raise half a trillion dollars over the next decade. The Chancellor also announced that he had won agreement from key Western nations for an immediate moratorium on debt repayments by those countries worst affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami.But Mr Brown found himself upstaged by Tony Blair's decision to hold his monthly Downing Street press conference at exactly the same time as the Chancellor's appearance in Edinburgh - even though the Prime Minister spent a large part of that conference praising Mr Brown. Television channels relegated the Chancellor by carrying the sound from the Blair conference on a split-screen feed of the two men, while Mr Brown mouthed his announcement silently. A long-running dispute between the two men has intensified since Mr Blair's announcement that he will serve out a full term if he wins the next election - widely expected in May - instead of presiding over an orderly handover of power to Mr Brown. Friends of Mr Brown say that he is angry at being excluded from the shaping of the Labour manifesto, a task now being led by Alan Milburn, an arch-Blairite. That was denied by Mr Blair, who said this morning: "There’s no way you can fight an election campaign with anything other than the Chancellor and the economy right at the centre of it." '

In normal times, there's no way a governing party can fight an election campaign with the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer at each other's throats. But these are not normal times because there is no credible opposition party, since the Tories are still performing their impersonation of a slow-motion train crash.

British politics appears to be nearing meltdown.