(Stabroek News):

Tony Blair has announced that he will demit office as Prime Minister and Labour Party leader by August 2007 at the very latest.

This has been agreed after much back stairs manoeuvring by his probable successor Chancellor Gordon Brown. It may well be that Blair leaves office even earlier in May 2007 or sooner if there is a party Putsch this autumn.

The change of Premier will be a signal for a widespread shake-up in the government. Many ministers will be returned to the back benches. Among them, two very likely candidates are two prominent members of the so-called 'Guyanese mafia' Baroness Valerie Amos, Leader of the House of Lords, and David Lammy, MP, Minister of Culture.

Baroness Amos, who has led the Lords (the Upper Chamber of Parliament) since October 2003, is seen as very close to Blair and one of his staunchest defenders in and out of the Cabinet. There have been attempts - so far unsuccessful - to unseat her before. This time though in any Cabinet making it is unlikely that the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown will look too favourably on such a high-profile 'Tony Crony' staying in a key position. This very able woman from Wakenaam will be in much demand outside the political arena when she steps down.

Bouncing around

David Lammy's position looks even more vulnerable. He has been a junior government minister since May 2002.

Since then, Lammy, a barrister born to Guyanese parents in north London, has bounced around the lower and middle recesses of ministerial office - in the Departments of Health, Constitutional Affairs and now in Culture, Media and Sport. He has not had an easy ride, especially in the bear pit of the House of Commons (the Lower chamber of Parliament). Today, Lammy is a Minister of State - outside the Cabinet - and responsible for the Arts and Libraries.

If Amos and Lammy were to be returned to the back benches by any incoming Brown administration, that would still leave other members of the 'mafia' in important public positions. Ironically, Blair has just promoted another one - Trevor Phillips, the chair of the Commission for Racial Equality to head the newly former British super rights body - to the Commission for Equality and Human Rights. He takes over next year almost at the same time as Blair is expected to leave office.

But as this generation of the soi-disant 'mafia' prepares to leave centre stage, others are waiting in the wings to take their position. Maybe not in politics, but more likely in the fields of finance and the allied areas.