PRIME Minister Gordon Brown faced yet another challenge to his authority after former Cabinet ministers Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt called for a secret ballot on his leadership.
A letter from Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt to their colleagues demanded that the issue is sorted out "once and for all" ahead of the next general election.
It is a further devastating blow for Mr Brown who looked certain to be leading Labour into the election, which must be held by June this year at the latest.
The Prime Minister endured a disastrous week last June when a string of ministers resigned and Labour suffered heavy defeats in the local and European elections.
But he then seemed to steady his position in the short-term with a reshuffle which brought Peter Mandelson back into government as Secretary of State for Business, Skills and Innovation.
Now Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt have caused a stir by putting their doubts over Mr Brown's leadership into the public.
With just a couple of months to go before the country goes to the polls, this is an unprecedented point at which to spark a leadership crisis.
When Margaret Thatcher was forced to resign in 1990, new Prime Minister John Major had two years to turn the Conservative party around.
He succeeded, winning a wholly unexpected overall majority in the 1992 general election.
Of course, Mr Major faced his own vote of confidence in 1995 but again that was almost a full two years before the 1997 election.
But, while the timing may odd, the figures at the forefront are predictable. Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt have nothing to lose by doing this.
They are both on the political sidelines and Ms Hewitt is in fact retiring at the next election.
Neither has endorsed an alternative leader but, at the same time, neither MP has made any secret of their desire to end the Brown era.
But, if anything, their plot has come almost a year too late. If there was any desire throughout the party to remove Mr Brown, it would have happened last summer in that disastrous week.
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions James Purnell quit, stating in a letter to The Sun and The Times newspapers that he had lost confidence in Mr Brown.
Mr Purnell allayed some of the Prime Minister's fears by saying he was acting alone and this was confirmed to be the case when none of the usual rebel MPs managed to present a candidate of their own.
The Cabinet did not collapse and the chance was lost. At this point, the rebels should have agreed to fight the coming general election with Mr Brown whether or not they liked being left - or lumbered, perhaps - with him in charge.
It is clear already that this attempt to overthrow Mr Brown will not succeed. The Prime Minister's aides can easily cast Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt as outsiders and failed ministers, even.
Mr Hoon struggled as Defence Secretary at the height of the Iraq war while Ms Hewitt was an unpopular Health Secretary among NHS staff.
Their plan to have a secret ballot is not concordant with the Labour leadership election rules, and they do not have Cabinet support or, indeed, widespread support in the Parliamentary party.
By their actions, Mr Hoon and Ms Hewitt have done nothing but damage the Labour party and their own cause as rebels.
Once again, Labour has appeared to be self-obsessed at the same time as the freezing weather brings the country to a standstill.
A text to Radio Five Live described today's events as being like the script from the next series of Armando Ianucci's brilliant political satire The Thick Of It.
But, for once, even Malcolm Tucker might have been rendered speechless by this ill-timed farce.
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