IT'S true politics is a rough old trade. And we should spare a thought for the families and friends of lain Mills and Martin Redmond, the Conservative and Labour MPs who died in the past week. Mr Mills died a lonely death, aged just 56. Mr Redmond was only 59 when he died of cancer.
The Grim Reaper continues to play havoc with the House of Commons arithmetic. And in these excitable, pre election times the deaths of Members of Parliament prompt barely a thought before attention turns to the impact on Mr John Major's precarious position in the Commons, the prospects for a "confidence" vote, and the chances of an early election.
Some MPs on both sides must have been praying for such on Tuesday night as ambulances ferried them from their sick beds to Westminster for that crunch vote on National Health Service funding. The acrimonious collapse of the pairing system left the whips unable to excuse one of their number who had undergone major abdominal surgery just 48 hours before. And the scene will be reenacted night after night as Labour continues its guerrilla campaign, and the government struggles to maintain the myth of its continuing authority.
At least (barring further deaths) until the Wirral by election. In the course of the next week or so the government must honour parliamentary convention and move the writ for the contest occasioned by the death of Mr Barry Porter. The contest seems set for the last Thursday in February or the first in March.
Mr Tony Blair hopes it will prove the precursor to a general election win for New Labour, and that, at that moment, the Tory house of cards will start to collapse. A majority of the nine Ulster Unionists appear content to sustain Mr Major until May 1st. But senior members of the shadow cabinet think that position may' prove unsustainable if the Wirral confirms the impression of a government beyond the point of recovery.
And it is that very prospect which has moved the smart money behind an earlier election than Mr Major had planned, possibly on March 27th or April 10th.
Senior Tories at Westminster agree their party chairman, Dr Brian Mawhinney, has no choice but to move the Wirral writ. They say the risk of losing is less than the opprobrium which would attach to any attempt at further delay. But as the reality of the event draws closer, and with opinion polls predicting a Labour gain, some have begun to revise their assessment of the damage that would be inflicted on the entire Tory machine just weeks from the general election itself.
So the theory is growing in some circles that Mr Major might let the by election proceed for the time being, while keeping open the option of a dissolution of parliament before the appointed date. According to one old hand, Mr Major could assess his party's likely performance and, if defeat seems certain, cut and run the week before. The effect of the dissolution would be to cancel the by election and signal the start of a longer than usual general election campaign.
In truth, of course, if Mr Major knows his intentions few others, will be in on the secret. The political play continues, meanwhile, with increasingly nervous Tories, likening the "near term campaign to the invasion of the body snatchers.
That was one of the more printable reactions to Mr Gordon Brown's audacious decision to commit a Labour government to uphold the tax and spend policies of the Conservatives. No change in the top rate of tax, or in the basic, and no change in the spending targets of the Chancellor, Mr Kenneth Clarke, for the next two years either.
Mr Clarke appeared momentarily wrong footed by this assurance of no change at the Treasury. But if Mr Brown's gambit was the cause of outrage (suppressed obviously) on the Labour benches, it occasioned incredulity elsewhere. And perhaps the most significant complaint to date has come from Mr Paddy Ashdown, the Liberal Democrat leader, who accused Mr Brown of "lying" to the British people.
Mr Ashdown predicted that if Labour got back Mr Brown would turn up on the Treasury steps with a long gloomy face and announce: "Oh my God, I have just seen the books, they are disastrous, taxes will have to go up."
A useful antidote, perhaps, to all the speculation about a Lab Lib pact which has already installed Captain Paddy at Mr Blair's cabinet table. And fertile ground, one imagines, for more Tory devilment!