The Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, returned yesterday from what should have been an invigorating winter break to find problems piled up on his desk after his government's toughest three weeks since it took office.
Mr Blair's government prepared for one of its busiest periods, as revelations about the failed marriage of the Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, threatened to overshadow a raft of new policy initiatives.
After further damaging revelations from Mr Cook's ex-wife, Margaret, about the Foreign Secretary's enmity with the Chancellor, Mr Gordon Brown, Mr Blair admitted his Cabinet had its share of personality clashes. But in a determined effort to shift attention back on to policy, he said British politics risked descending into "a sort of gossip column". He insisted he had "every confidence" in Mr Cook.
"Judge us on the things that we promised to deliver," he told Sir David Frost in a live TV interview. He should be condemned only if he failed to deliver on his promises to transform the health, education, welfare and criminal justice systems, he said.
The British Cabinet today launches a week-long "speech offensive", spearheaded by Mr Brown in a breakfast-time speech on the modernisation of government.
On Thursday Mr Blair will make a keynote speech at the 10th anniversary conference of the New Labour think tank, the Institute of Public Policy Research.
But the Prime Minister's efforts to focus attention on policy look set to be undermined by the fallout from Mrs Cook's explosive revelations. The Foreign Secretary's friends have made no attempt to deny her claims of his loathing for Mr Brown, which feed earlier speculation about feuds between the Chancellor and former Trade Secretary, Mr Peter Mandelson.
Mr Cook was clearly stung by the claims made by his ex-wife, a 54-year-old hospital consultant. While refusing to comment on the details of their private life, he authorised friends to deny allegations of a drinking problem.
Mr Blair sought to put the emphasis on the "ideological" unity of his ministers amid renewed talk of personal antipathies.
"I have no doubt that there will always be people who get on less well with others in any organisation," he said. "Sitting round the Cabinet table I would say we have got a more unified ideologically situation than we have probably had for years in a British Cabinet."
The Tories also attacked Mr Brown for an apparent conflict of interest after it emerged that his girlfriend, Ms Sarah Macaulay, had been hired to do public relations work for a company owned by the former paymaster general, Mr Geoffrey Robinson. They said the deal might have led Mr Brown to keep Mr Robinson in government, despite numerous question marks over his business affairs.
The Conservative Party leader, Mr William Hague, attacked Mr Blair's continuing close links with Mr Mandelson.
Mr Hague insisted Mr Mandelson's resignation from the Cabinet for failing to reveal a £373,000 home loan from Mr Robinson made him unfit to continue to represent Mr Blair at political meetings. The speed with which Mr Mandelson climbs back up the political ladder will be seen as a test of whether Mr Blair can continue to push his own party further towards the "Third Way" politics he has championed.