Gordon Brown could not hide his discomfort. As he sat in Bayeux cathedral alongside the Prince of Wales yesterday at a service to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, he did not stop fidgeting.

He would touch his blue tie or his face and shift around in his seat. By contrast, Charles and Sarah, the prime minister’s wife, sat impassively next to him.

Most prime ministers would have welcomed the chance to get away from the political storms at home and to commemorate the men who had given their lives to liberate Europe from Nazism. Brown, however, as is his wont, clearly could not leave his troubles behind.

As he left the cathedral, he inspected a line of cadets from a school in Somerset. “Thank you for being here,” he said, and tried to engage the boys in small talk. They refused to comply, grunting the odd response.

The incident seemed to sum up a week that has seen the prime minister’s authority pushed to the edge of collapse by cabinet resignations, backbench plots, a botched government reshuffle, disastrous election results and demands from people who were once his closest colleagues that he should quit to save the Labour party.

Brown’s government, whose power and respect had already been eroded by scandal and incompetence, ended the week looking like a “zombie administration”.

“The government goes on only in name, in reality it is lifeless and going through the motions,” said an MP.

Nevertheless, Brown has so far survived the spectacular departures of Hazel Blears, the fiery communities secretary, James Purnell, the smooth Blairite work and pensions secretary, and Caroline Flint, the Europe minister who accused him of treating her like “female window dressing”. Thanks to the intervention of Lord Mandelson, Brown now has a cabinet which, outwardly at least, is loyal to his leadership.

The rebellion that looked as if it might topple him early in the week seemed to be fizzling out. Yesterday a succession of loyalists took to the airwaves to declare that there was no grassroots support for the rebels and the mood of the party was for “rallying round”.

However, the prime minister is not yet out of the danger zone. A YouGov poll of Labour activists yesterday found that fewer than 50% thought Brown was the right man to lead the party into the next general election. And when MPs return to the Commons tomorrow, dazed and confused by the tide of events, and particularly tonight’s European election results, the rebels will start collecting names in earnest for a motion of no confidence.

Could Brown still be toppled, provoking more Labour internecine warfare and triggering an inevitable early general election? And how did the prime minister’s position deteriorate quite so suddenly and catastrophically?

Last Monday was not a bad day for the prime minister — at least by the standards of recent weeks. There were, admittedly, fresh revelations about expenses, but mostly they were focused on Alistair Darling, who was accused of claiming on two second homes at the same time.

Times Recommends

• A vicar’s wife: ‘There is no one to fight for us’
• Every little helps at the supermarket
• Ugg or Fitflop? The battle of the boots