IT's always difficult to drag yourself from a good party. And boy, has Tony Blair been partying since he swept sensationally to power barely two weeks ago.
Scarcely a day goes by without some dramatic headline grabbing initiative. Ministers, as everybody now says, have "hit the ground sprinting". By all accounts many civil servants are struggling to keep up. The MPs meanwhile are only beginning to discover what's hit them.
Mr Blair has already unilaterally scrapped the twice weekly session of Prime Ministers' Questions, and a new Select Committee on Procedure promises a "better" use of MPs' time.
Without waiting to consult the legislature, the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, has divested himself of the power to set interest rates, announcing the Bank of England's new independence in a distinctly New Labour setting, from behind a presidential style podium at a Treasury press conference.
Robin Cook has launched a first ever mission statement for the Foreign Office, suggesting an "ethical dimension" to Britain's foreign policy. The air is filled with talk of human rights and individual liberties, of which precious little was heard in the declining years of the last government (and, it must be said, during Mr Jack Straw's tenure in opposition).
Even before the people vote in this autumn's referendums, the Scottish parliament and the Welsh assembly seem faits accomplis. There will be a White Paper on a freedom of information act. And we even have a joyously irreverent Sports Minister drawn from the cast of Old Labour, who dares to use the "f" word and crosses his fingers as he swears the Oath of Allegiance.
Given all this, who wants to talk about the Tory leadership battle? And whatever happened to that bloke John Major?
Conservative leaning journalists talk of little else but the Race as they struggle still to come to terms with Britain's dramatic transfer of power. But that shift in power requires that the rest of us discuss it too. Yes, it's all too easy to look at them - Redwood, Howard, Lilley, Clarke, Dorrell and Hague - and swiftly avert your gaze.
But Britain already resembles a one party state. Remember all those arguments before polling day, the democratic imperative that power should change bands, the threat to democracy itself if the Tories won a fifth term? It was all true. But little attention had been paid to Labour's electoral achievements on the road to May 1st. It isn't just in Scotland and Wales that the Tories have been wiped out. They represent a negligible force now in Europe and in local government.
The general election result simply put the seal on a process which has pushed the Conservative Party to the margins, reduced it to an ageing English nationalist rump. A truly horrifying reality for the Tories, yes. But from the country's long term view as unsustainable as a Tory fifth term proved two weeks ago.
We all know the old adage about the corrupting nature of absolute power. And it will be intriguing to see how long Labour's massive army of MPs, only about a quarter of whom can have government jobs, will remain silently compliant as Mr Blair and his team get on with the exercise of executive power.
Self evidently, the size of the new government's majority - not to mention the nature of its programme, particularly on the constitutional front, and the tough decisions still to be taken on Europe - requires an effective opposition. But for that, we may - at least for some time to come - have to rely on those potential Labour dissidents.
For it is as yet hard to see the depleted Tory ranks fulfilling the task effectively. Kenneth Clarke (whom even critics acknowledge as the man Labour would most fear) hopes to top the poll in the first round, and thus secure his position with any new leader.
For the universal wisdom is it cannot be the former chancellor, given that the party he seeks to lead is determinedly Euro sceptical. John Redwood is deemed by many right wingers simply unelectable.
Peter Lilley, around whom something of a head of steam is building, is a very able man but, according to one admirer, "deeply uninspiring". Ann Widdecombe - who vows she never received a petal of a flower from the sacked prisons chief - is determined to do for Michael Howard.
Stephen Dorrell is deemed to have tacked and trimmed just a bit too much for either side's liking, and has a number of election gaffes to his name; which leaves William Hague the Younger.
Just 36, he is described by one insider as "useful, charming, a man who could grow into the job, and who has the benefit of not being so much identified with the old guard". If that sounds like something you've heard before, it's because you have. They said similar things about John Major in 1990 - a man of the centre right, not overly identified with faction and capable of uniting both sides: a man, above all, who benefited from not being somebody else.
Now, as then, that appears to be the best on offer. But one can only feel a certain apprehension for Mr Hague as he contemplates the prize. The novel idea occurs that they should all be leaders for a while, that the election be postponed to allow the extension of the electoral college, giving each of the claimants a chance to stake their claim, and, possibly, for others like Michael Portillo and Chris Patten to plot their return.
But a Tory historian insists a committee style leadership wouldn't appeal. The Tories, he says, want a leader. In his more somber moments, Mr Hague can only wonder if they yet want to be led.