After rot of Camelot there's no place left at the table for Keir

DURING Labour's honeymoon following its 1997 election landslide some commentators referred to Tony Blair's inner-circle as Camelot.

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It was based on a comparison with the young, glamorous court that surrounded John F. Kennedy's time as president, and Peter Mandelson would delight in telling people he was Bobby Kennedy to Tony Blair's JFK.

The major difference being that both JFK and Bobby were killed by assassins' bullets while Blair and Mandelson killed their credibility through narcissism, ambition and greed. Blair, starstruck by American attention, sold Britain a war based on lies while Mandelson was twice sacked after money scandals involving rich friends.

Yet despite those events happening more than 23 years ago the pair are still at the centre of Labour's never-ending, death-cycle psychodrama.