Could we have another deputy leadership election?

I suspect that "God forbid!" would be the answer of most Labour Party members to that question, but the current pressure on Harriet Harman over the dodgy donations affair means the possibility cannot be ruled out.

So of the half-dozen candidates who stood last time round, who would risk throwing their hats into the ring again? Possibly only one or two, in my view.

Harman, of course, would automatically be ruled out. So too would Hazel Blears, Hilary Benn and Peter Hain on the grounds of their disappointing performances in June.

The only candidates from this summer's race I can see fancying another run round that particular block are Alan Johnson, pipped at the post by Harman after being widely tipped as the victor, and Jon Cruddas, who came a good third on the back of a strong grassroots campaign.

Cruddas turned down the offer of a job by Gordon Brown - there is some dispute as to whether it was a party vice-chairmanship or a junior ministerial post - and so is untainted by association with any of the disasters to strike the government over recent weeks. He could well win.

Johnson would also find it hard not to stand, having come so close before. But there would, I think, be other candidates.

The demographics of the Labour Party make it almost certain there would be a woman, with Caroline Flint, Ruth Kelly and Jacqui Smith among the possible contenders in the enforced absense of Harman and Blears.

I think Jack Straw would also fancy it. He expected to be made Deputy Prime Minister, or at the very least First Secretary of State, in Brown's first reshuffle, but the Prime Minister foolishly denied him both titles. He could not deny them were Straw to become deputy leader.

The big question, though, is whether one of the disgruntled Blairites would throw their hats into the ring - Charles Clarke, perhaps, or Alan Milburn, or even Foreign Secretary David Miliband?

If so, the media would very quickly try to turn it into a leadership election at one remove, and the attractions of Straw as a "unity candidate" would become even more apparent,

Could this be Jack's big moment? Although Brown will do all he can to save Harman, I fancy the Government would actually look stronger without her, with Straw officially installed as DPM and someone else entirely - Cruddas? - in the role of Party Chair.

Then again, Michael Heseltine's appointment to the same role in 1995 was supposed to strengthen John Major. And look how that ended.

Should Tony Blair have talked about his faith?

Alastair Campbell famously said he didn't do God. The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, thinks he should have done. The former Prime Minister himself, in Part Three of The Blair Years to be screened next Sunday, explains that while there is no point pretending he doesn't have a personal faith, he didn't want to come over as a "nutter."

This raises a difficult question for me. As a Christian, I not only approve of politicians who are influenced by Jesus's teaching, I would have difficulty voting for one who wasn't. The main reason I could never bring myself to vote for Neil Kinnock even though he made possibly the greatest speech of the last 30 years was that he was a self-confessed atheist.

But at the same time, I also dislike politicians who claim, or appear to claim, that they have some sort of "hotline" to God that influences not just their general political thinking, but individual political decisions. Mr Blair has clearly implied this in the past in relation to Iraq, for instance.

Whether or not this made him look like a "nutter," it certainly brought Christianity into disrepute by making it appear as if the Christian "viewpoint" on Iraq was pro-war, when in fact the question of whether the Biblical commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill extends to military conflict has always been a hotly-disputed theologically issue.

So I am not entirely sure I agree with Dr Nazir-Ali on this, although it doesn't entirely surprise me to see him criticising Mr Blair. He was, after all, George Carey's chosen successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, but the former Prime Minister went for Dr Rowan Williams instead.

The problem with Tony Blair was not that he was a Christian, nor even that he occasionally made references to the fact, but that he too often allowed himself to sound as if he, alone, had the mind of Christ. The truth is none of us can claim that - at least, not this side of Heaven.

Gordon Brown and Steve McClaren

Matthew Parris was not the only pundit who made this comparison on Saturday. I drew the same analogy in my weekly Newcastle Journal column which can be read HERE

Parris's piece seems to have kicked off a round of frantic speculation about the Prime Minister's future. Mike Smithson thinks "Brown to go before the next election" is worth a flutter, while Jackie Ashley claims to have spoken to Labour MPs who say he actually will go. Are they serious?