You know you're in trouble as Prime Minister when Cabinet colleagues start rushing out statements insisting they still have complete faith in you.

It's like football managers getting the dreaded vote of confidence from the chairman. It's utterly meaningless (unless the chairman happens to be Steve Gibson, of course).

How funny is it that Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has issued a statement this afternoon, insisting that she wasn't attacking Gordon Brown in an article she wrote for The Observer?

She was surprised, apparently, that the article had been interpreted as being criticial of the PM.

This is despite the fact that she wrote about the Government's "lamentable failure" to get its message across.

Her article also said: "Promote your message on YouTube if you want to. But it is no substitute for knocking on doors and setting up a stall in the town centre."

It was, of course, a thinly-veiled reference to the fact that Mr Brown had used YouTube to announce proposed changes to MPs' expenses.

Not an attack? Oh come off it Hazel.

We all know the knives are out - and so does Gordon Brown.