OF ALL those delighted at the announcement of the engagement of Prince Edward to Sophie Rhys-Jones, none was probably more gladdened than Prime Minister Tony Blair starting his three-day visit to South Africa. He will be grateful to it for the relief it at last offers him from the media's attention over the faction-fighting in his Cabinet after the Mandelson affair.

For not even the Christmas break or his holiday with his family in the Seychelles has, until now perhaps, provided an escape from the headline-writers' and commentators' obsession with the splits and feuds exposed in the Labour leadership by Mr Mandelson's downfall and its aftermath.

But, insists Mr Blair, unity prevails.

The difficulties of the past few weeks are over. The government's course is unchanged. The departure of the party's arch-moderniser Mr Mandelson does not signal a return to Old Labour values. The party is more ideologically united than it has ever been. He and Gordon Brown are closer than any prime minister and chancellor have been in living memory.

And, for good measure, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott says it is nonsense that he and Mr Brown have formed an anti-Blairite pact.

Voters with only the slightest experience of politics will react with a sardonic smile.

For Mr Blair would say that, wouldn't he?

But while it may well be that governments and political parties cannot survive for long if they do not generally pull in the same direction, it is the very stuff of politics for them to be riddled with intelligent and ambitious individuals eager to promote themselves and their own ideas - for that is the nature of politicians.

New Labour is no more free from factions and plots than John Major was with his Cabinet "bastards," or Margaret Thatcher whose ministers sacrificed her for their own survival, or Harold Wilson who hardly dared to take a holiday in case a Cabinet coup occurred.

When cynics say of politicians that they are all the same, they are often correct when it comes to the lust for power and influence - which makes politics such an intriguing business.

And we use the word 'intriguing' literally.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.