Indeed, no time was lost by the great and the good in reminding us of this and it was the beleaguered government which led the celebration.

The prime minister might wish right now that 21st-century technology would leap from downloading King Kong onto laptops to cloning Kembers with cups of steaming Horlicks to be downloaded on the public when the going gets tough. Never in his 10year reign has he needed such an honest-to-God, good oldfashioned piece of good news, one that even his enemies will struggle to turn against him.

Blair certainly wasn't able to extract a warm nugget of comfort from his chancellor's budget on Wednesday. There were few handouts and no tax cuts and the glaring omission of the health service in any shape or form surprised most observers. But more than that; any moment when the spotlight shines on the sober Gordon Brown merely reminds Blair that his days are not simply numbered but being counted by the nation's leading number-cruncher.

And most of the media sought to interpret the chancellor's words as his manifesto for future government rather than a budget for the nation's finances and future investments. Nobody is fooled here. This is a waiting game and, as the waiting has extended beyond reasonable expectation, the crowd is getting shifty and nervous. In this atmosphere, there is no sense of being governed. The captain of the ship of state is still wining and dining and holding court but without any sense of purpose or direction.

Every single subject of importance is mired in controversy . . . terrorism, education, pensions, the environment, health, nuclear power, nuclear weapons . . . that's the short list! That's some achievement when you think about it and it does not include the war in Iraq, which hangs like a cloud over everything and remains fertile ground for protest and criticism. One hundred dead British soldiers cannot be airbrushed from Blair's CV.

And still he hangs on in his Downing Street bunker watching his government moving over in the mire to make room for his party. Yes, that's New Labour, the party with the red rose as its symbol, a rose now covered in what could be best described as organic fertiliser. Borrowing money to conduct business is commercial reality but borrowing in secret from wealthy businessmen begins to feel uncomfortable.

Offering some of them a posh seat in the sleepy chamber of the House of Lords is like looking at a fat man squashed into a small seat on a clapped-out bus.

And then having the party treasurer, who is married to the nobly titled constitutional affairs minister, declare he knew nothing about the millions lent to his party and the whole sorry tale could be parcelled up and nominated for the Orange prize for fiction.

Except that it would be flung out because of the ludicrous and unbelievable plot.

The observers, smart political experts and pundits have given up trying to work out why Blair is still in office. The best reason for staying appears to be that it will be hard for him to get out of bed the morning after his hotline to George Bush has been turned off. Or perhaps the prime minister really believes that there are more Kember moments to enjoy and that they will outweigh the drudge and drear of daily politics.

That, as we say in polite circles, is just 'a load of horlicks!'. Norman Kember should never have been kidnapped and he certainly deserves to be free. That his welcome release might have provided the prime minister with a few moments of respite is surely just a bit of luck.

After all, pushing Brown and his budget off centre stage must have made him giggle if nothing else.

But if Blair believes for a second that there are other SAS-type operations which can buy him breathing space, glorious tributes and a feelgood factor, then he is praying to the wrong God. Instead of waiting or engineering the next Kember moment, he would do well to send a minion out for a case of Horlicks to be enjoyed as he sits in his bed and watches Brown wrestle in the mire with the very long list of tasks he is now in a position to bequeath to him.