In any court, proximity to the king is the true measure of power. In the time of the Stuarts, courtiers in Whitehall Palace fought each other for the right to be received in the sovereign’s bedchamber.

The same principle applies to another Scottish ruler, who reigns over modern-day Whitehall. The visitor who enters the black door of No 10 Downing Street is immediately faced with a long, corridor, lined with modern art. Follow the hall to the end and straight ahead is the nerve centre of the modern state: the cabinet room and next to it the “den”. This armchair-lined study is where Tony Blair conducted his “sofa government”. Under Gordon Brown, the room remains a key centre of power.

Before reaching the den, just off to the left, is another door. Anyone peering in would see a cramped office with scruffy wallpaper, and probably not give it a second thought. But this unadorned antechamber is the lair of the two men who, in a matter of weeks, have risen from obscurity to become Brown’s most powerful lieutenants.

Stephen Carter is the former PR man and cable television executive who was hired last month as the prime minister’s political adviser.

Jeremy Heywood is the workaholic civil servant who was appointed at the same time as No 10’s first permanent secretary. Appropriately enough, he used to be a highly competitive player of Risk, the world domination board game.

Their office door remains permanently open, allowing them a clear view of the den and the ability to monitor everyone who enters and everyone who leaves. Both men intuitively grasped that when it comes to offices it is not the grandeur that counts, it is how close you are to the boss.

This reshuffle of the furniture is the most visible evidence of the battle that has quietly engulfed No 10. The aim of these new arrivals is to kill the image of Brown as the dithering control freak who fusses over every issue - the human helicopter who hovers obsessively over his colleagues. Their challenge is to rebuild Downing Street from the ground up so the prime minister is no longer swamped in paperwork and is better able to make the right decisions at the right time.

The revolution will not be without its casualties. Already some of the team appointed in haste by Brown last summer are said to be considering their futures. Fiona Gordon, the political secretary who was evicted from her office to make way for the new arrivals, has been sidelined.

Spencer Livermore, a senior political adviser who has been described as Britain’s most powerful gay man, has also had his nose put out of joint after suffering an effective demotion with the appointment of Carter.

But some of Brown’s own supporters worry whether the arrival of a more professional team has happened too late to rescue a dysfunctional administration overseen by a prime minister with a flawed personality.

The diagnosis of No 10’s ills has long been apparent. Despite having a decade to plan his move, Brown failed to appreciate just how much of a challenge being prime minister would be.

Initially he copied the office structures that had served him well at No 11. His team quickly became buried under the avalanche of paperwork that arrived daily from all over Whitehall. There was no system to filter out the important information that needed to be put in front of “GB”.

The fact that Brown has always been a details man, used to reading every scrap of paper, made matters worse. There is an apocryphal story that Brown, assembling the notes he takes into prime minister’s questions, does his own stapling. One Wednesday morning, he apparently worked himself into such a nervous state that he drew blood when he accidentally stapled his hand.

The technocrats, Carter and Heywood, have their work cut out. They have put in place a proper diary system, imposing more structure on the prime minister’s chaotic 16-hour days. Old allies accustomed to turning up any time to chew the fat and maybe watch the football on television are being told to make an appointment.

Optimists claim the handling of Northern Rock has been the first fruit of the new team’s approach: while it may have taken time to decide to nationalise, the action that followed - the emergency legislation and appointment of new management – was swift and effective. The detail was delegated to Alistair Darling.

Unlike other recent crises, the Labour machine swung into action to support the leadership. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, was drowned out in a wall of noise by Labour backbenchers during Monday’s Commons debate.

The credit goes to another rising star, Tom Watson, the former trade union official who was implicated in the 2006 balti house coup that forced Blair to bring forward his departure date. On paper Watson is a junior minister in the Cabinet Office. But his real importance is demonstrated by his office, which is in the same complex as No 10 and was once part of a suite occupied by Peter Mandelson in his pomp.

It is true that last week went better for Brown than anyone could possibly have expected. The prime minister’s new team should be wary of premature celebration, however. Brown turned 57 last Wednesday. That is an age at which most men would struggle to change the habits of a lifetime. To guarantee his political survival, he needs to do just that.

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