I doubt it. Yet this has undoubtedly been a strange period for the Chancellor. It has been in contrast to the general election campaign, when Mr Brown, having previously been deemed disposable by some of the Downing Street circle, was clasped to Tony Blair’s breast and used by the Prime Minister as if he were an invisible forcefield, a great bulb of devil-scaring garlic, or a sprig of lucky heather to ward off a discontented electorate.

Rarely has a political contest anywhere witnessed such an explicit offer to “buy one, get one free”. As a consequence, Mr Brown had never seemed more awesome.

There is a strong, but superficial, argument that the roles of Blair and Brown have been reversed recently. The Prime Minister is undoubtedly on something of a high, emboldened by realising that he will never have to face the voters again, enlivened by crossing swords with Jacques Chirac over the future of the European Union and enhanced by the prospect of playing informal president of the planet at the G8 summit in Scotland.

There is a zero-sum assumption about much of the analysis of the Blair-Brown relationship. This argues that if Mr Blair is “up”, then Mr Brown must automatically be “down”. It is as if the two men were clockwork figures in some Swiss weather forecasting instrument — when one pops out of his little door, the other, of necessity, must withdraw into his own.

If you look at life like that, then three factors have emerged since polling day to boost the Prime Minister and inconvenience the Chancellor. The first is the decline in importance of the Pickfords factor in politics. Immediately after the ballots were counted, Labour MPs, many of whom had seen their majorities slashed, appeared to be queueing to demand that Mr Blair name the date when the removal vans would arrive outside his doorstep. That clamour, always irrational, has ended. The few characters who are prepared to hit the airwaves to make the case for Blair’s removal called in Mr Pickford years ago to quietly dispose of their sense of judgment.

The second factor is the eclipse of the Barclaycard factor in the economy. There is little doubt that consumers have retrenched and that lower spending on the high street has contributed to slower economic growth. The Bank of England is today contemplating interest rate cuts, not a further increase. By the time of his Pre-Budget Report, Mr Brown may have to inform the House of Commons that some of his forecasts have not been realised. He will loathe the experience.

Thirdly, the Armageddon factor has been removed from the calendar. If the referendum on the European constitution had occurred next summer as planned, it would have marked the natural end of the Blair premiership. In order to have stood any chance of securing a majority “Yes” vote, the Prime Minister would have had to persuade the electorate that a ballot cast against the constitution would not necessarily bring his time in office to an end. To do this, he would have had to volunteer in advance to stand down whatever the outcome. In any other circumstances, he could have been almost assured of a humiliating defeat.

And even if Mr Blair had made this sacrifice, the odds are that he would still have gone down in flames. Once France revolted against its President and rejected the treaty presented to it, Mr Blair escaped the Armageddon factor. With one bounder (M Chirac), he was free.

It is tempting to put these three elements together and declare Mr Brown to be imprisoned. I think that is too simple. The fates of the Prime Minister and his Chancellor might once have been in competition, but they are increasingly combined. The assumption that what benefits one must harm the other is out of date. It ignores the reality that the succession is no longer an “if” but a “when”.

The Pickfords factor was, and still is, as destabilising for Mr Brown as for Mr Blair. It was not in the Chancellor’s interest for the Prime Minister to be bundled out of office in a matter of months in an anarchic fashion. To put it harshly, Mr Brown needs Mr Blair to be held responsible for whatever unpopular decisions need to be taken in this Parliament and for him (Brown) then to seem like a breath of fresh air at a later stage.

The eclipse of the Barclaycard factor is no disaster for Mr Brown, either. If the economy is to go through a sticky patch at any stage in the next five years, then it is far better that moment occurs as soon as possible. Whatever fun the Conservatives might have with a few flawed predictions this autumn will not matter much in 2009-10. Even the removal of the Armageddon factor should be a relief to the Chancellor.

Yes, Mr Brown might well have become Prime Minister by September 2006. He would also, though, have had to devise a European strategy in the aftermath of a battering in the referendum. It would hardly have been the most auspicious of beginnings to his tenure.

Disappearances can be deceptive. Over the next six months Mr Brown will have a relatively low profile, while Mr Blair basks in the limelight. There may be fresh reports of fratricidal tension between them. The truth is that, like it or not, they are now more bonded to each other than ever. That Gemini factor is more important than the Pickfords factor, the Barclaycard factor and the Armageddon factor put together.

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