Were this any other week of the year, I might have found myself writing today about what, for the North-East, must surely be the least astonishing political revelation of the year so far. I refer, of course, to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's comments on BBC Radio Four on Monday concerning the Prime Minister's "support" for Newcastle United. "Oh, he's a fair-weather supporter, he doesn't go to many matches," said Mr Straw, airily contrasting Mr Blair's lightweight commitment to the Toon Army to his own consuming passion for Blackburn Rovers. Whatever else he has done in his career, Mr Straw surely deserves a medal for displaying such disarming honesty about something so clearly and obviously true. I might also, on a more serious note, have written about former Home Secretary David Blunkett's intriguing speech on English identity, also delivered on Monday. Ever since the demise of the regional devolution project, there has been an unanswered question in the air over where England and its regions stand in what is an increasingly unbalanced UK constitution. Mr Blunkett is not, at this stage, arguing for the logical answer - an English Parliament to stand alongside the Scottish and Welsh bodies. But his attempt to claim the Englishness issue for the political left is an essential first step in building broader support for political institutions that will reflect our distinct English identity. This being Budget week, however, I can't really justify devoting any more of this column to either subject. This was Gordon Brown's week, and if the rumours at Westminster are to be believed, it will be the last time he gets the opportunity to bask in the limelight that comes with Budget Day. The latest bout of wild speculation suggests the Chancellor's Cabinet seat is already being earmarked for the Prime Minister's star protégé, South Shields MP David Miliband. There can be no doubt Mr Miliband has the intellectual firepower to be a successful Chancellor - but whether he has the political skills is another matter entirely. But if Wednesday does indeed prove to be Mr Brown's last hurrah, it is clear the Chancellor was determined to go out with a flourish. Last September, in a move which seems more and more incomprehensible by the day, Mr Brown was sidelined from Labour's election campaign in favour of his hated rival, Darlington MP Alan Milburn. But since then Labour's campaign has predictably faltered, setting the stage for the Chancellor to use his Budget to ride to the rescue. And ride to the rescue he did, proving beyond any lingering doubt that he should never have been removed from the chairmanship of the campaign team in the first place. So this was, above all, a Budget designed to get Labour's flagging campaign back on the rails and with it, the Chancellor's longer-term leadership prospects. If not exactly a giveaway - the net fiscal effect of Wednesday's package was almost neutral - it was certainly calculated to press all the right buttons with Labour's key target voters. The opposition parties' highlighting of the council tax issue, and specifically its impact on pensioners, was effectively neutralised with the £200 rebate announcement. And the moves on stamp duty and inheritance tax are bound to reinforce Labour's appeal to those middle-class floating voters who had been starting to lose patience with the party. As a brief aside, the change in stamp duty is one of the very few measures introduced by New Labour which will have markedly more benefit in the North of the country than in the South. Raising the threshold to £120,000 will have next to no impact in London where such sums will not buy you a broom cupboard - but it will help homebuyers in our own region. Wednesday also saw the surprise announcement of free off-peak bus travel for pensioners - a long standing hobby-horse of the outgoing MP for Gateshead East and Washington West, Joyce Quin. Ms Quin has been a great servant of the North-East and I hope for her sake this will count as something of a consolation for the loss of the regional assembly she had hoped one day to lead. But to return to Mr Brown - the big danger facing the Chancellor is that by helping Labour obtain another big majority, he will actually make it easier for the Prime Minister to move him from the Treasury. Mr Brown's continuing popularity and the broadly positive public reaction to the Budget ought to be enough to demonstrate the sheer folly - as well as the unfairness - of such a course. But Mr Blair now seems set on a "win or bust" strategy in the long war of attrition with his old rival. With the date of his departure more or less set for 2009, he appears determined to spend his remaining years in power governing his way without Mr Brown looking over his shoulder. If the Prime Minister does indeed sack the Chancellor in May, it would be the ultimate act of betrayal from a man whose name has become a by-word for it over the past eight years. But worse than that, it would be a con-trick on those hundreds of thousands of people who will only have voted Labour on account of Mr Brown. Most of the wiser heads in politics and journalism are taking the view that a Labour victory and a successful third term are crucially dependent on Mr Blair and Mr Brown continuing to work together. If Mr Blair ignores their advice, it won't just be him who ends up being damaged. | 
