As he chews over leadership gossip in the latest edition of the Spectator, Fraser Nelson nibbles at one of the more ludicrous theories doing the rounds among MPs at the moment.
It is that James Purnell could form a dream ticket with Jon Cruddas.
I suppose the idea is that Cruddas would be to Purnell what Prescott was to Blair.
The idea is cobblers for a number of reasons.
If the right wants a lefty who, like Prescott, would stay quiet and toe the line on policy then Cruddas is not their man.
For one he is the last politician on earth to be flattered into taking a subservient number two role in return for a fancy title such as deputy prime minister.
His interest is in ideas, rattling cages, challenging tired assumptions: unusually for a politician he is genuinely more interested in policy than power.
Purnell likes Cruddas and Cruddas likes Purnell. But they are about as far apart and unsuitable a match as is possible to imagine.
Purnell is driving the privatisation of welfare because he believes in that sort of thing, while Cruddas dreams up ideas on how to keep the private sector out of areas where he thinks the state can run things more imaginatively, such as the Royal Mail.
Both would be totally compromised by the other.
They have one thing in common: they both play a decent game of golf and occasionally turn out together for the Parliamentary Golf Society.
But that is the only decent partnership I reckon they will ever make.
