WHAT a disastrous year it is proving to be for John Major. The hangovers have barely lifted, 1996 is not quite one week old, but Harold Wilson could never have envisaged the eternity that can be a week in the life of this British government. And the Christmas season is notoriously unkind to the beleaguered prime minister.
The one just ended proved no exception. Dr Brian Mawhinney and his new spin doctor were set to launch their New Year offensive. But they found themselves cruelly upstaged by a spectacular Palace of Westminster coup. As John and Norma Major finished off the mince pies, Emma Nicholson and Paddy Ashdown provoked an acute fit of Tory indigestion.
City actuaries had amused themselves during the in between bit of the festivities by predicting the three or four backbench deaths likely to obliterate Mr Major's Commons majority. But theory gave way to reality as events once more laid siege to Downing Street.
Before either Grim Reaper or Big Ben had struck, Mr Major's majority was effectively down to three. Two more deaths or defections will make his a minority government, and there are still 15 months to run to his preferred date for a general election.
The extent of Tory disarray was revealed by the party's response to Ms Nicholson's defection to the Liberal Democrats. By any standards it was a bit of a rum do. Preferred by Mrs Thatcher, a supporter of Mr Heseltine - the fiftysomething MP decided the Conservatives were no longer the party of Harold Macmillan.
Many wondered where she thought she'd been for the last 20 years.
But when Michael Portillo said as much - deriding her embrace of the Euro federalist party the "One Nation" Tories turned on him with a vengeance. It suits much of the prevailing prejudice that Ms Nicholson's disillusion should be Mr Portillo's fault. But the charge of a cabinet lurching to the right is certainly laughable to the Tory right.
And party activists may well feel the inability to rubbish the defector in coherent and effective terms is the clearest sign of the undeclared battle for the succession which will follow electoral defeat.
ACCORDING to the prevailing wisdom, it is only a question of how long Mr Major can postpone the inevitable. New Labour enjoys a 30 plus lead in the polls. And there is little doubt that, were there to be an election tomorrow, Mr Blair would romp home with a large majority.
The Nicholson defection simply reinforced the impression of a tired and dispirited administration, limping wounded towards its end.
However, this wisdom is not universally shared. On "adjusted" figures, senior Tories reckon Labour's lead in the region of 16 or 17 points. Tax and mortgage cuts will only hit pockets in March and April.
If Chancellor Clarke could deliver a November budget fulfilling the Tory pledge of a 20p standard rate, who knows how the punters might feel come May 97? But it is, admittedly, an enormous "if". The assorted opposition parties have vowed to remove Mr Major at the earliest opportunity.
Should Grim Reaper oblige, Mr Blair would seek an immediate confidence vote. In that event, the Prime Minister's fate would appear to lie in the hands of Mr David Trimble's Ulster Unionists.
One imagines minority party leaders dream of exercising such power. But it's possible Mr Trimble might view the prospect with a certain apprehension.
After all, he knows how he came by the Ulster Unionist leadership last September. Mr (now Sir James) Molyneaux was effectively forced out (and be in no doubt he was pushed) because the unionists thought his confidence in Mr Major misplaced.
The present Commons arithmetic, on the face of it, gives Mr Trimble greater leverage than Mr Molyneaux enjoyed in July 1993. Mr Trimble's constituency (not to mention the DUP and the influential Mr Robert McCartney MP) may, in consequence, expect Mr Trimble to extract a better deal. But can he? In strict unionist terms, the answer is almost certainly "No".
Mr Trimble's influence is undoubtedly enhanced. If Mr Major were disposed to compromise on the decommissioning issue (and there is no evidence that he is) the UUP leader may be confident he will hold the line.
Hence Mr Trimble's suggestion that all party talks are unlikely this year, never mind by the end of next month. Mr John Hume would appear to have little hope of persuading Mr Major to convene the talks and proceed in the absence of the unionists.
The arithmetic, then, seems set to secure the political stalemate this side of a general election. But as for anything else.
Mr Trimble will press his plan for an elected body / assembly / convention in the North. It seems Mr Major is keen but Mr Hume is not.
Even if Mr Bruton was tempted, Mr Spring would hardly countenance such a breach with Northern nationalism. The Prime Minister will have his work cut out for him if he is to bring the SDLP and Sinn Fein aboard.
Mr Hume, arguably, is missing a trick. An elected body as a vehicle for negotiation is not without its attractions, especially given the ongoing decommissioning impasse.
But he is aided by Mr Trimble's failure to define his plan in those terms. He sees the body, in the first instance at least, as a forum for discussion and debate. And even this much can only be accomplished after Sinn Fein has secured a mandate for peace. The implication is that Sinn Fein will be a different creature following an assembly election.
But Mr Trimble can hardly think to write Mr Adams's manifesto. The lack of coherence, meanwhile, simply feeds nationalist and republican suspicions about the UUP's real intent.
In any event, an elected body as a forum for debate must seem a dubious proposition to some of Mr Trimble's own supporters. The unionist objective is to secure actual devolution of powers and to separate new internal arrangements from any requirement in terms of new North South institutions.
That was Mr Molyneaux's purpose when he forged his "understanding" with Mr Major. And he subsequently defined it on the Commons floor, to reverse the assumptions underpinning Anglo Irish policy as it had developed over the preceding 20 years.
NO LESS is this Mr Trimble's purpose. And no less does he seem bound to fail. The embrace of a pro active unionist agenda (as opposed to the management of stalemate) would be but another nail in the coffin of this Conservative government.
There have been repeated indications from senior ministers that Mr Major would "go to the wall" rather than sacrifice his Irish "achievement". And the odds must be that, should he survive until the autumn, he would face the country rather than stand accused of endangering the peace in Britain and Ireland.
That in turn tells us something of how Mr Trimble might deploy his forces. Should the crucial vote come late in the year, the UUP leader will surely look to his own electoral interests and the necessity of doing business with whichever government comes after.
But a big question remains: will the IRA be prepared to wait for Mr Blair?
