Political Focus, with Bill Jacobs

Tony Blair had been due to reshuffle his Cabinet this week, but has postponed the shake-up. July is now favourite for the remodelling of his top team, but influential advisers are now urging him to wait longer - until the autumn or even next year.

There are immediate short-term problems which have made a Whit reshuffle almost impossible - but longer difficulties which suggest that delay would be wise.

The Prime Minister wanted to conduct the shake-up last year but Chief Whip Nick Brown persuaded him to wait until the existing team had been in office for a full year.

He is likely to be one of the leading advocates of delay - not least because at one point he was being named as one of the likely victims.

However, Mr Blair appears to have forgiven him his role in supplying the juicy bits in the infamous "authorised' biography of Chancellor Gordon Brown which exposed the rift between numbers Ten and Eleven Downing Street.

A key consideration is that to reshuffle the Cabinet during the European Union Presidency would cause major problems and confusion with our EU partners, not to mention in Whitehall.

As that does not finish until the end of next month, it makes July the earliest feasible date.

A second argument is that the three Cabinet Ministers most at risk of the chop have been mounting something of a fightback and deeply involved in long-term projects. Harriet Harman's role as Social Security Secretary means that moving her could destabilise the review of the Welfare State - especially as she has recently projected herself as the Minister protecting the interests of benefit claimants.

Transport Minister Gavin Strang has been anonymous but competent of late and is deeply involved in the Integrated Transport White Paper due next month.

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster David Clark is also up to his neck in preparing Freedom of Information legislation and tackling the Millennium Bug counter-measures for government computers.

If he has a problem about the Ministers he might wish to dispense with, Mr Blair also has one with those he would promote.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Alistair Darling is so deeply involved in the Comprehensive Spending Review that he cannot be moved until it is finished.

As the signs are that this is now deep in trouble with Ministers such as Health Secretary Frank Dobson, President of the Board of the Trade Margaret Beckett and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott demanding billions, the signs are that he will be tied up for some months.

Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam is similarly impossible to shift until the future of the Ulster Peace Process is clear - which could be well into next year. Of the Ministers of State in the frame for promotion, the main two, Health's Alan Milburn and Education's Stephen Byers, are deeply involved in wide-ranging and contentious reform programmes which would be derailed if they were moved.

The man champing at the bit for promotion is Peter Mandelson - who has his eyes on his boss Dr Clark's job - but there are strong voices opposed to launching a full-scale reshuffle to promote such an unpopular figure who is, in any case, perceived to be doing a good job where he is keeping fellow Ministers up to the Blairite mark.

On a more practical level, there are 10 Ministers currently in Standing Committee dealing with government legislation. To replace these figures mid-stream would cause delays and a host of technical problems.

On the bigger picture, there is the question of what to do with Foreign Secretary Robin Cook and his Junior Minister Tony Lloyd.

While there are strong arguments for moving both - Mr Cook for mishandling the Arms to Africa affair and Mr Lloyd for bungling it - to do so would look like panic.

To leave them in place would also cause problems - and open Mr Blair to criticism of lacking the guts to act.

Leaving a space of some months would give the Prime Minister a better chance to asses their performance in the longer term and make a considered judgement without being accused of being bounced either by their supporters or opponents. If he were to wait till next year, he could quietly sack Mr Lloyd and move Mr Cook ,whose judgement is now considered suspect by many in government.

Waiting till the summer has another practical argument - it gives the new Ministers time to get to know their briefs over the holidays before they have to face the bearpit of the Commons - and it gives those booted out the chance to get used to their fate without having to face their colleagues.

This argument will certainly be deployed by Mr Brown as he urges delay.

But there is another argument for keeping everything on hold next year - Mr Blair does not relish the prospect of being an axeman.

As one government insider put it: "Tony won't want to do it. If someone can make a coherent case for waiting till next summer, he may well take it."

And if he did, he'd be right - for then he could make the type of wide-ranging reshuffle needed to refresh his government without creating a reservoir of resentment on the backbenches.

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