Christopher Leslie, an unpaid junior minister at the Cabinet Office, will now draw a salary.While Ms Hunter's departure from Tony Blair's side was a wrench, it was only the most high-profile of a series of comings and goings among Downing Street advisers. Two highly trusted private secretaries, John Holmes and more recently John Sawers, have both left, in natural development of their careers, for ambassadorial posts in Lisbon and Cairo. A restructuring of the increasingly important foreign affairs arm of Downing Street has brought in Sir Stephen Wall, the former British ambassador to the EU – and private secretary to John Major – to handle EU affairs, and David Manning, another diplomat and member of the big power contact group on the Balkans, as his adviser on the wider world. Along with Mr Campbell, Mr Powell and Ms Hunter, Mr Manning has been accompanying Mr Blair on his recent missions after 11 September.In similar evidence of natural turnover, David Miliband, the political high-flier who ran Mr Blair's policy unit in opposition and throughout his first term, has become the MP for South Shields, to be replaced by the equally brainy Andrew Adonis, a former academic and journalist who was for a while in the Social Democratic Party and was responsible for education and constitutional matters in the 1997-2001 policy unit. Robert Hill, the former health specialist in the policy unit, will remain as Mr Blair's political secretary – the job that Baroness Morgan held before the last election.There has also been further movement at the more nuts-and-bolts end of Mr Blair's inner office, with Kate Garvey, his former diary secretary, moving to another role in Downing Street which includes event planning. The new diary secretary is Katie Kay, who was personal assistant to Lord Birt when he was director-general of the BBC.In one sense Ms Hunter's departure is similar to that of the much lower profile one of Tim Allan, Mr Campbell's former right-hand man, who also left Downing Street for business. Mr Allan, who now runs his own consultancy, will certainly applaud Ms Hunter's similar decision to make a change in her life from the 24-hour grind of Downing Street while she still has plenty of time.

Ms Hunter wanted to leave before the election, and while the post-election restructuring of Downing Street was partly designed to keep her and Mr Campbell fulfilled, she clearly remained restless.Nevertheless given the reported clashes between Ms Morgan and Ms Hunter when they both worked at Number 10, the ironies will not escape Whitehall watchers. Of the three most powerful women in the central party and government machine, Ms Hunter, Margaret McDonagh and Sally Morgan, it is Baroness Morgan who remains in office – and in power.. The Labour rebel MP Paul Marsden, who opposes the war in Afghanistan, has accused Tony Blair of acting like a king and heading a government "drunk on power". The Labour rebel MP Paul Marsden, who opposes the war in Afghanistan, has accused Tony Blair of acting like a king and heading a government "drunk on power". Mr Marsden, who is on a fact-finding visit to refugee camps in Pakistan, warned that America's cluster bombs would "kill more children than terrorists" and predicted that 100,000 children could die because of the conflict "They will die from poverty, disease and the war.

Whether the life is taken in New York or Kabul, each one is precious," he said.Writing in the journal of the Campaign group of left-wing MPs, Mr Marsden said the war had demonstrated that Britain has a "weak Parliament" dominated by a Prime Minister who retains the full powers of the state."The reason Tony Blair does not have to worry one jot about the mere details justifying this war is because he cannot be held to account for it in Parliament," he said. "Britain needs a written constitution to give Parliament the power to check and balance an executive drunk on power ...We cannot continue to have a regal Prime Minister and his shadowy courtiers dispensing patronage and power as they see fit."Mr Marsden argued that the United Nations should set up an international criminal tribunal to indict those responsible for the 11 September attacks."It is understandable that people want revenge but that doesn't make it right. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that there are no clear aims to this war other than revenge," he said.The MP for Shrewsbury and Atcham has become a thorn in the Government's side after disclosing attempts by Labour whips to silence his criticism of the war. In the article, he described how the Chief Whip, Hilary Armstrong, "told me with a straight face that war was not simply a matter of conscience but simply government policy".Another Labour MP, Alan Simpson, chairman of the Labour Against the War campaign, warned yesterday that Mr Blair's personal popularity could quickly melt away in a public backlash against Britain tying itself so closely to America. He told the political website ePolitix : "It's a very easy style to support if it's a consistently winning style, but the risk that it runs is if it all goes pear-shaped for you, then you're pretty much out on your own."Describing Mr Blair as "the President", Mr Simpson said the war could kill off public support for Labour's domestic policies. "If you lose faith in what the President stands for, then you cease making excuses or concessions for aspects of other policies that don't feel right either," he said.. A woman who may be the only patient to have survived an attempted murder by Harold Shipman recalled yesterday how she collapsed moments after the GP leant across her in bed and inserted a needle into her left arm.