Episode 96 of the Blair-Brown soap opera last week saw one of our heroes — the brooding dark one — deliver a speech in Edinburgh promising to rid the world of poverty. Meanwhile the other one — the smiling suntanned one — was impressing on the world his commitment to aiding the victims of the tsunami disaster. That the prime minister held his televised press conference at the same time as the long-scheduled speech from the chancellor was no doubt one of those curious coincidences that politics sometimes throws up. Or so Downing Street insisted. As we report today, Tony Blair seems determined to repeat the exercise (sorry, coincidence) of upstaging Gordon Brown at the Davos world economic forum.

The prime minister and chancellor have had a long political marriage, dating back to when they were thrown together as House of Commons roommates more than 20 years ago. Mr Brown reluctantly agreed to stand aside and let Mr Blair contest the Labour leadership after John Smith’s death, and he has been smouldering ever since. Westminster observers say the marriage is effectively over, that they have even stopped throwing plates at each other and they are only staying together for the sake of the party.

In the past all this would have been easily resolved. The prime minister would have sacked his chancellor, promoted some compliant acolyte and got on with the business of government. This is different. Mr Blair has seen his friends Peter Mandelson and David Blunkett commit political hari kiri but there is no sign of Mr Brown suffering a similar fate. Demoting the chancellor would be highly risky, even after a third election victory, given his support in the party. So the soap opera looks likely to run. We should, of course, condemn this, since it distracts the two most powerful men in the government from their jobs. But there is also an upside, at least for publishers. It has led to a welter of books, including another one this weekend. It generates many column inches of newsprint. And there is always something amusing about the sight of grown men acting like five-year-olds.