What is it about ambitious foreign ministers? Gordon Brown is not the only prime minister to feel the heat from the foreign ministry, where David Miliband has fuelled speculation that he is ready to take over from a badly foundering Brown.
In Israel, where Ehud Olmert has announced that he will step down in September amid a spate of corruption charges, the person most likely to take over the leadership of Kadima, the centrist party, also happens to be a foreign minister, Tzipi Livni.
Usually, the best preparation for the job of prime minister - in the UK at least - was from one of the big domestic departments, the Home Office or the Treasury. But in an age where foreign affairs increasingly impinge on domestic business - look at the credit crunch which started in the US - a knowledge of the outside world is a big plus.
Incidentally, it was not so long ago that the name of Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, was mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate, even though she had never held elected office.
