For sure, these are troubled times for Tony Blair and his government. But before the notion of his imminent demise spins out of all relation to reality, it is necessary to put the prime minister's difficulties in overall context. To do that, we must first discard Mr Blair's own text.
This may seem surprising. When all around are losing their heads and blaming it on spin, we might have expected the prime minister to provide the most measured assessment of the achievements and challenges of government.
Not a bit of it. Addict that he is, Mr Blair just can't help himself. Following the arrival of baby Leo he told the Women's Institute that brief period of paternity leave had given time for reflection. It was possible, he'd realised, to lighten up a little. In government now, not in opposition, it was no longer necessary to fight over every headline. But for all his insistence that he is about substance rather than spin, he keeps reaching out to touch that famous hand of history.
Monday's leak of his memo to senior colleagues, betraying a growing fear that he is perceived to be "out of touch" with the gut British instinct, was indeed a grievous matter. General bitchiness between ministerial colleagues is one thing. This, however, was directed personally against Mr Blair, suggesting malevolence somewhere at the very heart of his government. The embarrassment was hideous, the charge inevitable that the memo revealed a prime minister consumed by image, his search for eye-catching initiatives driven by focus groups rather than any set of core beliefs and values.
There would be no shortage of enemies ready to exploit this golden invitation to ridicule and mockery. Certainly they needed no assistance from Labour, and ministers were right to try to manage the situation by asserting that the April 29th draft - written in advance of the local election defeat - actually showed a prime minister patently in touch with the public mood. Unconvincing it may have been, particularly to a press corps scenting blood - but managerially this certainly seemed the right, indeed only, course available.
Enter Mr Blair, an address to the American Bar Association meeting in London, and, again, the hand of history. Just in case any doubted the extent of the damage inflicted over recent months, the prime minister likened his government's experience to the Atlantic passage of the Mayflower carrying the Pilgrim Fathers in 1620. Caught by autumn gales the ship's main beam cracked and they had to ride the storm for days.
"In the middle of the storm," recalled Mr Blair, "Elizabeth Hopkins gave birth to a son whom she called Oceanus." And, yes: "The birth of a child in the middle of huge storms is an experience with which I can easily identify." It raised a laugh from his approving audience. But "huge storms"?
True, the ending of the longest honeymoon in history has proved painful - the belated arrival of the "mid-term" blues shocking confirmation for New Labour that it may never quite be glad, confident morning again.
However, "huge storms" are the sort of things which encircle the Taoiseach on a daily basis. Mr Blair's government has a Commons majority of 179; presides over a healthy economy which enabled the Chancellor on Tuesday to announce the biggest spending spree since the war; and appears, still, blessed by the quality of its opposition.
Political pundits obviously enjoy the government's discomfiture, just as they relish suggestions that a raft of these leaks will accompany the planned statements by ministers explaining how they will spend their share of the Chancellor's £43 billion bounty. But not even the most enthusiastic Tory commentator will tell you that the Tories are on the verge of a return to power. When it comes to a choice between Blair, Brown and Straw or Hague, Portillo and Widdecombe the expectation for the next election matches that of the opinion polls.
Of course the expectation is that the landslide majority delivered last time (courtesy of a lower vote than that cast for John Major in 1992) will fall. By how much will rest on the government's response to its present difficulties? All the evidence is that people dislike Mr Blair's perceived piety and distrust the government's tendency to inflate its achievements by way of double or even triple announcement; they believe the government is obsessed with "spin" and - courtesy of these leaks - have evidence from within to support that view; and, for all the spinning that has been done, they still lack a sense of this government's core beliefs and purpose.
To Mr Blair's evident delight, the Chancellor's spending statement provided the context in which Labour can sell its story - that a centre-left government can run a successful economy, while improving public services and widening opportunity - from now until polling day. However it will require greater cabinet discipline than has been evident in recent weeks, altogether less spinning, and an end to memos retailing the government's reliance on the focus group.
For one of the greatest dangers thrown-up by the latest revelations is that Mr Hague might make stick his charge that Labour is in office for the sake of it. And the big question, obviously, is how Mr Blair will react should he really hit a serious storm.