actually, I just spotted this in the Observer today, sqad: we may both be wrong
Alistair Darling is - or, at least, was - a close friend and ally of Gordon Brown. His wife, Maggie, often helps to look after the prime minister's children. The chancellor may have had a charisma bypass, but he has kept his head when many others would have been driven insane by the combination of the worst financial crisis since the war and outrageous briefing against him by the poisoners in the prime minister's gang.
Early on Thursday evening, Mr Brown attempted to bully Mr Darling into leaving the Treasury. Then and again on Friday morning, Alistair Darling pushed back and the prime minister was finally forced to abandon the idea of installing Ed Balls at Number 11. It was a retreat that made him look very weak, but by then he had no alternative. The sort of resignation speech that Alistair Darling could deliver would be fatal to Gordon Brown. The chancellor's hand was strengthened by the terror caused by the Purnell resignation which also made it too risky to try to move David Miliband from the Foreign Office. In sacrificing his job, James Purnell inadvertently helped to secure them in theirs.