Rarely has politics been so thrillingly unpredictable

I have spent the past week in Tintagel, overlooking the castle thought by some to be the birthplace of King Arthur and perhaps even the true site of Camelot. It is one of the most astonishing views in England and you feel – because you are – on the edge of the world, looking out into the Atlantic and down through the centuries into a mythic past tantalisingly visible in the Cornish mist. Where better, far from Westminster, to think straight about the decline and fall of King Gordon – a doomed monarch whose plight needs a Mallory or Tennyson to do it full justice.

Truth to tell, I have returned to Westminster astonished by the understatement in the press of the depths of the PM’s predicament in the wake of Glasgow East. Too much of the coverage over the weekend focused on process, the technicalities of removing Mr Brown and the undoubted inertia (publicly at least) of the potential contenders.