It's the last days of John Major all over again. "Dear Tony, I have done nothing wrong so I am resigning. Stephen" "Dear Stephen, I agree you have done nothing wrong so I am accepting your resignation. Tony."
House Points has never been keen on Stephen Byers, but not for the usual reasons. Most of his problems with the railways sprang from the Tories' absurd splintering of the system. The way he stood by Jo Moore can, after a stiff drink, be put down to misplaced loyalty.
We are happy to shrug off his problems with BMW. We are sure he is telling the truth about the Daily Express take-over. We quite like his transport plan and never rated Martin Sixsmith anyway. True, we noted his resemblance to the dodgy Richard in Coronation Street. But we are happy to accept it was sheer coincidence that the character killed his ex-wife with a shovel the following Monday.
Our dislike stems from Byers' time as a minister at education and employment. These were the days when Teletubbies ruled the world. Tinky Winky, Dipsy, Laa Laa and Po brought joy to millions – rather like the Gang of Four in the early days of the SDP. But Byers was not amused. He announced he was worried about literacy and sent for a video of the programme.
What a great job to have! Miss Thunderbirds or Captain Pugwash and you can have the episode biked over the next morning. But we wondered what he thought of Tinky Winky and Co. and wrote to ask him. His private secretary replied that Byers had seen it "but remains to be convinced that it helps in raising standards for young children".
That was New Labour. No room for enjoyment. Everything geared to raising standards. A War on Toddlerism. Hadn't Margaret Hodge announced that the days of "colouring, cutting and pasting are over"?
Labour used to put Britain's poor economic performance down to class divisions in industry or a lack of countercyclical public investment. By 1997 they had decided the cause was children not learning their tables.
Byers must have known better, but he was happy to go along with this rubbish. So House Points is pleased to wave him "Tubby bye-bye".
Socialists used to believe they knew how to run the economy. Central planning was more efficient than the market and morally better too.
When they gave up that one, they needed somewhere else to interfere. They chose families, which explains why Estelle Morris was so pleased the other day when a mother was gaoled because her children played truant.
But Morris must know that the state is the worst parent of all. Children in care do badly at school and are far more likely than other youngsters to become involved in crime or prostitution. The system is no better run than the nationalised industries were.
New Labour has recognised this by promoting a bill to encourage adoption. And reform is needed. The Guardian journalist Matthew Engel, an adoptive parent himself, has written that adoption of a child has been turned into something close to a crime and involves indignities unacceptable in a free society.
Where are the Conservatives in all this? They think of themselves as the party of the family, even if they do send their children off to boarding school at a tender age. ("Eventually you settle down and understand how to make the most of the times you have with your family," says Iain Duncan Smith.) Yet they dislike the bill because it makes it possible for unmarried couples, including same-sex couples, to adopt.
Ann Widdecombe gave the Tory view last Friday: "It is only … by making it the norm that adoption is undertaken by married couples that security and stability can be achieved." One old buffer even asked whether the bill would erode the civil liberties of children adopted by homosexual partners. Sorry, that was Jimmy Wray, a Labour MP from Glasgow.
The professional left won't let people adopt if they are too fat or smoke or don't say the right things about race. The right won't let them adopt unless they meet its idea of what a family should look like. The only thing that separates the two groups is their different prejudices.
As Andrew Stunell said, "what has to be evaluated is not one kind of partnership against another, but all those partnerships against living in a children's home. The choice is easy to make."
Come with me to a Belgravia penthouse. The walls are hung with Persian carpets and somewhere a Bach fugue plays. A familiar figure is sprawled on the chaise-longue. Dressed in an exquisite silk dressing gown, he leafs through a book of hunting prints and winces as if in pain when he sips a poorly decanted Château Margaux '53.
A telephone rings discreetly and an equally discreet butler answers it. "It is the whips' office, sir. It seems there is to be a division. Shall I put out the sports jacket and red tie?" And so Dennis Skinner (for it is he) dresses and leaves for the House, pausing only to rehearse a Nottinghamshire accent in the hall mirror.
No, this is just my fantasy.
But the Beast of Bolsover does appear to have gone soft. Last week Skinner supported Gordon Brown's decision to pay for extra health spending by putting up national insurance contributions rather than income tax.
This Monday Evan Harris spelt out the full unfairness of government (and Beastly) policy. People earning as little as £5,000 a year will have to pay more, but a wealthy retired couple living on a large unearned income (let us call them Denis and Margaret Thatcher) will not pay an extra penny.
Yet a few months ago, when Derek Wanless reported it was fairest and most cost effective to go on funding health through general taxation, Labour MPs were delighted. It proved they had been right all along. Top man, Wanless, they said. You ought to read Wanless. He's very good on this.
But at the last election Labour promised not to increase income tax. So, however unfair, national insurance it has to be. And along with the rest of them, the Beast slouches into the Aye Lobby.
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If a week is a long time in politics, then 24 hours is several lifetimes in the career of Stephen Byers. There is no knowing what he may have got up to and got out of by the time you read this.
But one thing is certain. I cannot be the only Coronation Street fan to have noticed his strange resemblance to Gail's dodgy new fiancé Richard.
What were the people of Hartlepool thinking of? They elected a ridiculous character who has made the town a laughing stock.
No, Peter Mandelson was not a happy choice, but that man in a monkey suit may not be much of an improvement.
House Points dislikes elected mayors. As Matthew Huntbach argued in a recent Liberator, the idea of a strong man (or monkey) who will shorten debate, bang heads together and get things done is dangerously authoritarian. No wonder New Labour was attracted to it.
Now mayors are under a cloud and postal voting is in. This is the way to get more people to take part in elections. In future we will be governed by the choices of those who can't be bothered to walk further than the nearest pillar box.
Voting needn't hurt, but it should be more memorable than paying the gas bill. Otherwise people will set up the electoral equivalent of a direct debit and forget about politics altogether.
Which brings us to apathy. The way local government has been stripped of its powers makes it a sensible reaction, but some people worry. In particular, they worry about the apathetic young. Liberal Democrat policy is for voting at 16. An appealing idea, though canvassing could be a problem. "She's like can I count on your support and I'm so like whatever."
Judging by the BBC's results programme, the problem is not apathy so much as ignorance. And I don't just mean David Dimbleby. That night a group of students were asked their views on politics. They said they understand nothing about it because of the language politicians use.
That's right: we live in an age of soundbite politics, but it is too complex for most undergraduates. Some commentators want to dumb down further: "lets X 2gthr. c u thurs 7 4 a Labour of love," as young voters were told at the last election.
Others take it as proof that middle-class teenagers now have to be heartbreakingly stupid to fail to get to university. Is it really too much to expect them to pick up a broadsheet newspaper occasionally?
Tuck the rug around our legs and take us for a nice walk. We'll be all right by next week.
The House Points time machine is out of commission. We waited in all day Tuesday but the man never came. So we have to guess the reaction to this week's local elections.
Two forecasts: all parties will say the results are good for them, and acres of newsprint will be devoted to the low turnout. Suggested solutions will include compulsory voting, postal voting and Internet voting. Today's young people don't know how to use a pencil, so let them use their mobile phones instead.
This column knows who is really to blame: Carol Smillie.
Let us explain. Last Thursday saw questions to Estelle Morris, the secretary of state for education and skills. First up was the Tory Chris Grayling, asking about the funding of sixth forms by the Learning and Skills Council.
The what? Morris's deputy Ivan Lewis explained: "Since 1 April 2002 local education authorities have been funded by the Learning and Skills Council for provision in their school sixth forms."
That's right: if you don't like the amount your local council spends on sixth form education, it's no good writing to it. It's not much use standing for election either. Because the level of funding is decided by the Learning and Skills Council.
Visit the Council's website and you find little about the academic education sixth forms exist to provide. But there is plenty about the need for business to be "able to recruit trained, talented and motivated staff in order to compete more effectively". And there is Carol Smillie.
"TV star Carol Smillie," says a press release, "will send her first ever e-mail … as part of the launch of Bite Size Intros – a new month-long programme that will see thousands of people all over England sample free 'bite-sized' chunks of learning."
No doubt it's an admirable scheme, but does adult education have to be this patronising?
Further education used to be a vivid patchwork of council and voluntary providers. First it was nationalised by the Conservatives: now New Labour has made it over to a quango. Local accountability has been elbowed aside by TV personalities.
So if you are worried about your local sixth form, don't bother walking down to the polling station. Send Carol Smillie an e-mail instead.