Jacqui Smith: at the point of Nick Robinson's stiletto

I don't doubt for a moment where Nick Robinson's instinctive political sympathies lie, any more than I doubted what side Andrew Marr or Robin Oakley would take on certain issues of the day when enjoying a drink with friends. Robinson himself seems to have gradually taken onboard the extent to which the public have got his number, certainly in the time since his early months in the BBC Political Editor job, when his slip was continually showing, and he didn't seem to have the nous to tuck himself in.

Still, a measure of how he's come along is in today's BBC blog entry on the Jacqui Smith debacle, in which he strikes a tone that is also increasingly present in his to-camera stuff: reasonable and rounded and personally sympathetic, to some extent, you'd have to say.

"She is not, after all, just a minister or an MP but the mother of two school age boys who may now come to hate the day their mum went into politics."

And yet, what is the quintessence of dust...? Because what one truly takes away from the piece is the unmistakeable savour of a career and a government consigned to the rubbish-bin. Get to the end and you'll see the cleverness of Robinson's construction.