You just had to look at Tony Blair’s face after Prime Minister’s Questions, the worst of his premiership. No spin, no rationalisations, no excuses can disguise the awfulness of the combination of the foreign prisoners fiasco, the lurid Falstaffian disclosures about John Prescott’s affair and the heckling of Patricia Hewitt at the nurses’ conference. But just how bad are these events for Mr Blair and Labour?

It is misleading to link them under an umbrella term such as sleaze. The Prescott saga will not change many votes. Stories about ministers’ private lives seldom do. The other issues are far more serious since they concern the Government’s competence. Mr Blair and Charles Clarke sounded unconvincing for the simple reason that they have a weak case. No one can deny that there have been big administrative blunders within the Home Office, not only over the release of foreign prisoners who should have been deported, but, particularly, in failing to remedy the problems fast enough when ministers learnt of them last year.

Demanding Mr Clarke’s head is the easy, populist response. But it is largely a diversion. The real question is: does Mr Clarke still have the political authority, as he claims, to bring the problem under control and to restore confidence in the Home Office? The opposition parties argue that he does not. Most Labour MPs are still sympathetic, and Mr Blair obviously does not want to lose close allies such as Mr Clarke or Ms Hewitt.

Mr Clarke is, however, still very vulnerable. If some of the foreign former prisoners who have not been deported are found to have committed other serious offences, then Mr Clarke’s position could really become untenable. He is at the mercy of events.

These troubles could not have come at a worse time for Labour, with local elections only a week off. The two most recent polls, ICM in The Guardian and MORI in The Sun, have pointed to falls in both Labour and Tory support, to the benefit of the Liberal Democrats, and probably also, to a lesser extent, the British National Party. The precise figures need to be read with caution because of a probably exaggerated BNP rise in support.

Before the weekend, Labour’s prospects looked mixed, bad in London but possibly limited outside the capital, where comparisons will be with a bad year in 2004. But, now, the risks are all on the downside, with both the Tories, in London, and the Liberal Democrats, in the big industrial cities, set to gain. There must, at least, be a chance of a rout, which could trigger another bout of speculation about Mr Blair’s leadership.

David Cameron and David Davis made ample use of their opportunity yesterday in the Commons. But comparisons with the final days of the Major Government, and talk of a Labour meltdown, are misplaced. For all its current troubles, Labour is still in a much stronger position than the Tories were ten years ago. In April 1996, the Tories were on 27 per cent, and Labour on an average of 55 per cent. Now, the two parties are level pegging on just over 34 per cent, with the Lib Dems on 23 per cent. The Tories are right to sense a Government in deep trouble. But power is still a long way off.

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