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Well, well. Clear, confident and with backbench support, in her Commons statement Ruth Kelly promised a new law implementing a new vetting system to come to Parliament in February. Talk of the demise of the education secretary was premature.
It's a heady brew. Not just the painful and sensitive issue of protecting children from sexual abuse but, and let's be clear about this, the circling of the political pack when they sense a minister is weak and vulnerable. The memories of Soham are too recent and raw, the role of bureaucratic bungling too familiar, the legitimate questions left unanswered for too long, the minister's performance too hesitant, for Ruth Kelly not to be at the centre of a storm.
But it is the fact that Kelly is in charge of Tony Blair's most controversial reforms - the ones whose defeat could spell the beginning of the end of the Blair years, and even the normally loyal Neil Kinnock is attacking - that has got Westminster's pulses racing.
The delay of a ministerial reshuffle - due since David Blunkett resigned and pencilled in diaries for Monday - and the news that government whips were asked whether it would be easier to get school reforms passed if Kelly were moved, have added to the tension. That's why a story that Westminster virtually ignored for three days has turned into a feeding frenzy.
Kelly has ignored the rule-book for dealing with these sorts of crises. Rule One is make an early parliamentary statement revealing all you know and admitting what you don't know but promising to come back with all the facts. Yesterday she made a written statement, was then forced into making a televised one and has now been forced into one before the Commons.
All her statements have so far looked nervy and defensive. Enough to have her sober opponent David Willets ever-so-politely wondering if she can stay in her job and his Lib Dem equivalent Ed Davey calling for her head. Yesterday Downing Street tried to still the frenzy by making an unprecedented statement that Kelly's job was safe whenever the reshuffle came. To lose her now would be a defeat for Number 10.
Remember then when you hear all the noise today at Westminster that all minds are not simply on the undeniably very serious issue of child abuse.
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My series on The Prime Ministers is on Radio 4 (Tue 0930, repeated Sun 2245) - or click here to listen. Most recent:
And Decision Time, on how ontroversial decisions are reached behind closed doors in Whitehall, was on Radio 4 on Wednesday 11 March at 2000.
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