THE ANNUAL LIST of gifts received by ministers — and whether or not they choose to purchase the items — is always a treat, but I wonder whether it does much for British diplomacy. You can hardly blame the Danish Government, for example, for assuming that John Reid is the sort of chap who might like a ceremonial sword, especially since his move to the Home Office, and being aggrieved that he did not cherish it enough to buy it.

I was also intrigued by the cowboy kit given to John Prescott by Philip Anschutz, which included a “Stetson, boots, spurs, belt, buckle and notebook”. Notebook? My memories of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood are vague, but they surely did not wander around the Wild West awaiting the chance to record their inner feelings. This Brokeback Mountain thing is getting out of hand.

It is, though, the offerings bestowed on the Prime Minister that are the most interesting and potentially more symbolic. Much of the attention has focused on Tony Blair declining four consignments of fine wine from Jacques Chirac in the past year (he probably suspected that the French President was trying either to poison or to bankrupt him). To me, it is more significant that he spurned not one but two clocks presented by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and the King of Bahrain.

He should have taken both of them. For once he has completed his whirlwind tour of the United States and headed off on holiday, there is one question that should be occupying him: when is the best time for him to announce his departure date? And while, until recently, the moment for announcing that departure was next July, with a view to standing down at the Labour Party conference in September (or “a year and a bit” in the alleged words of Alastair Campbell), Mr Blair will be well served by “a year minus a bit” instead.

He could continue for a little longer if he wanted. Some of the arguments made for him to leave earlier rather than later are distinctly spurious. It was not, for example, a “mistake” for him to have said publicly that he would not seek a fourth term in office as he did in October 2004. What else could he have done? If he had insisted that he would run “on and on and on” as Margaret Thatcher did, then neither his party nor the electorate would have tolerated it. If he had stayed shtoom, the media would have debated what the deeper meaning of his Delphic stance might be. It was always likely that he could not endure more than a decade in Downing Street and the speculation about his future would have been just as intense as it is today whatever he had or had not uttered.

Nor does the Prime Minister really need to stand down because the Government is in desperate political trouble. In truth, it is in more robust shape than ministers realise.

There was a point immediately after the local elections when the Tories suddenly opened up a six to eight-point lead in reputable opinion polls, which, if they could have built on it, may have been their breakthrough. They did not, the gap has closed and there is nothing that Labour should be scared of. If confronted by the thought of whom, if it comes to the crunch, they want in power, voters have not yet abandoned Labour.

But if voters are allowed to, they will most vigorously kick the Government and Mr Blair. Whether it is council elections or Westminster by-elections, the pattern over the past two years is consistent. Whichever party is best placed to do so — often the Liberal Democrats — turns the vote into a referendum on the Prime Minister. While mainstream Labour supporters, who are not particularly hostile to Downing Street, cannot be bothered to vote, the Blair-haters, by contrast, come out in droves. It is in this sense that he motivates his enemies, and this sense alone, that the Prime Minister has become a liability.

It is also why it is overwhelmingly in Mr Blair’s personal interest to look at the clock again. If he sticks to what is believed to be his plan — maintain the pretence that he has not made up his mind to quit until this time next year, then stand down at the end of September — he risks a humiliating departure that his record does not merit.

Next May 3 will be “Super Thursday”: the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and the largest number of English council seats in this parliamentary cycle are up for grabs. Voters will be told that they have a unique chance to force his hand by going Abol (Any Bunch Other than Labour). The SNP will make hay north of the Border, the Liberal Democrats on either side of it and the Tories in England. It will be a tarnished end for Mr Blair and a dubious bequest to his successor.

But it is avoidable if Mr Blair removes himself from the firing line. If he were to say in late March next year that nominations for the Labour leadership would open shortly after the ballot boxes on May 3 had closed, he would cease to be a target for angry voters. Labour would improve its prospects in those elections and the Prime Minister could have two months, three if Gordon Brown is subjected to a serious challenge, to wrap up unfinished business at home and abroad.

If Mr Blair waits until he is roaringly popular again before resigning, he is destined to be disappointed. The paradox of his plight is that he will be accorded the respect that he understandably craves only after, not before, a well-timed departure. If he can recognise that, his could still be a relatively happy ending. If so, then it might be worth him stocking up on any decent plonk that President Chirac sends his way in the coming year.

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