Now that one minister and a handful of ministerial aides have resigned two groups of people face a decision today.
The Brownites: They are accused of attempting a coup by Tony Blair's friends. If that's right they have to decide if they are going to follow it through. Will this become not just this group of relatively junior folk - but senior cabinet ministers, as they did with Thatcher in 1990, saying to the PM, "you need to go and you need to go soon"?
The Blairites: Can they bring themselves to work with Gordon Brown to make a reality of this awkward phrase "stable and orderly transition"? They haven't so far for one good reason - they don't want Gordon Brown to become PM. They wanted their man to stay in office so someone else could emerge. If they can bring themselves to work with Brown, perhaps he'll call the dogs off. Perhaps.
Until we know the answers to those two questions, we can't know whether Tony Blair will be here for eight more months as he hopes, or just weeks.
So now we know. Tony Blair will resign on May 31st.
Well, maybe but maybe not. I am a little sceptical about the date that appeared overnight in The Sun and has been picked up by many of its rivals. May 31st is not a date in Tony Blair's diary. It is, instead, the the latest possible point on the political calendar for the PM to announce formally that he's standing down as Labour leader.
Why?
Because there's no point in him staying beyond the end of the parliamentary year (the end of next July) and it will take the party a couple of months to elect a successor.
But before you assume that's done and dusted, do not forget that we still don't know whether Labour MPs will be satisfied with the promise that their leader will be gone sometime in a year. Many will say "if then why not sooner so that we can take on the Tories again and avoid disaster in May's elections". Others will insist that they need to hear from the PM himself not merely from "his friends". The Brown-ites want a process of transition like that adopted by a company chief executive handing over to his successor.
That brings us to the heart of Labour's problem. It is perfectly true that unlike the Tories in 1990 there is no ideological split in the party. But there is another split which could - and I do emphasise could - be as damaging. It's the split between Brownites and Blairites which has been festering for a dozen years ever since Tony won and Gordon lost the Labour leadership. It's more about personal animus than policy difference but no less poisonous for that.
The Blairites wanted their man to stay longer in large part because they wanted to find an ABG (Anyone but Gordon) candidate. Once it was Milburn, then Blunkett, then Clarke. Now their hopes are pinned by John Reid.
Even if he can't win they hope he and they can flush out Gordon Brown out (ending what Alan Milburn called a "trappist silence") and force him to publicly pin in his colours to the New Labour mast. He is equally determined to resist.
This story is far from over.
