The Cabinet is beginning to resemble a sackful of squabbling ferrets with their beady, greedy eyes trained on the party leadership should the Government fall at the next General Election.

This kind of behaviour – we have seen it all before – is a strong indication that many cabinet ministers believe (although they would never admit it) that Labour is doomed when the nation next goes to the polls.

Nor would they ever admit that they were positioning themselves to step into the hapless Gordon Brown's shoes once he has been booted out of 10 Downing Street.

All this, of course, is an assumption on the part of those fighting for the crown that the worst possible scenario is about to befall Labour.

But the bloodiest aspect of all is among the women, with Harriet Harman, the Leader of the Commons, making a very unsubtle bid for the leadership.

Some of her Labour colleagues suspect that Ms Harman, who is deputy leader of the Labour Party, believes she has a divine right to lead.

However, her suggestion that buses should be banned from "middle-class areas" because those residents can afford cars has probably done her prospects a huge amount of damage. That idea of hers has already been denounced as "madness" by the Department of Transport.

Meanwhile, the chirpy Hazel Blears fancies herself as the right-wing candidate and is, some of her colleagues claim, prepared to put the boot in where Ms Harman is concerned.

On top of all this, the elfin-faced Yvette Cooper seems to want to join in this political brawl as well. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, has probably ruled herself out of the running because of her second home problems.

So we can look forward to a particularly vicious cat fight, with an abundance of clawing and scratching. Ladies, please!

Meanwhile, the rivalry among male hopefuls to succeed Mr Brown looks positively tame by comparison. The Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, made a clumsy bid for the leadership last summer and his brother Ed, the Energy Secretary, is also among the runners and riders.

And Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, recently wrote a newspaper article explaining (somewhat precociously, you might think) how he would deal with David Cameron if he had the top job.

Among all this, there is a virulent "Stop Harman" campaign within the Labour Party. Some Tories have been openly expressing the hope that she will get the job because they feel that if she did, Labour would be out of power for a decade at least.

Meanwhile, sitting in the background, not saying very much, is the most experienced of them all, the Justice Secretary, Jack Straw.

If I were a betting man, my money would be on him.