THERE was much, as usual, to admire in Gordon Brown's performance yesterday: his mastery of figures, his family-friendly policies, his dashed good luck and his apparent unconcern as he dashes to the very edge of a deep, black hole.

Tony Blair, sitting beside him, seemed thoroughly to enjoy a blatant piece of electioneering. A billion pounds to ensure there are no nasty headlines next year about resented council tax rise. An extension of the Child Trust Fund scheme so that any opponent who pledges to scrap it will be accused of stealing £500 out of a baby's back pocket - surely electoral suicide.

As ever with a Brown pronouncement, the detail may look a little different in the morning, but to be fair to him he has ridden his luck so far and his predictions - despite his critics' crystal-gazing to the contrary - have been correct.

But this Brown pronouncement, more than any other, is being examined not just as a fiscal measure but as an indicator of personal intent.

It is no longer just Westminster tittle-tattle that Mr Blair and Mr Brown are not the best of mates. Even without the dismaying description of life inside the Government from the senior civil servants' union, there was an unnecessary gloat in Mr Brown's speech about Peter Mandelson, who was for so long Mr Blair's closest ally.

This rift ties in with David Blunkett's predicament.

Once these men - all of them extremely intelligent and genuine people - were prepared to sacrifice their personal ambitions as they pursued power because they knew that only in power would they be able to fulfil their political ambitions. In 1994, Mr Brown even submerged his personal ambitions for the good of the party.

But how different it appears now that they have been in power for seven long years. Mr Brown wants to fulfil his personal ambitions so badly that he appears willing to destabilise the double landslide-winning Prime Minister. Mr Blair wants to bolster his personal position so badly that he drags in Alan Milburn as support. Mr Blunkett wants a personal life so badly that he is willing to take part in a bitter public battle about his fathering of an unborn child.

It is trite to remind them of the desires that drove them to the top in politics - noble desires to make the country a fairer, better place - but that we must do because the Opposition is so poor that there appears to be no alternative to these men and their personal feuds.