Never having been one for eulogies and valedictory speeches, I struggled today to come up with a suitable way of marking Blair’s announcement of the date of his impending departure… should I be serious or satirical, that’s the question.

Well, after much deliberation I decided ‘fuck it, let’s have a bit of fun’ so, without further ado The Ministry of Truth is pleased to announce its first official Ministerial ‘Dead Pool’, the game where you win by picking losers.

THE OFFICIAL MINISTRY OF TRUTH MINISTERIAL DEAD POOL

RULES/HOW TO ENTER

The rules of the game are simple.

Below you’ll find a list of current Government Ministers and their Shadow counterparts – there is the odd anomaly in there due to bits of doubling up, Peter Hain, for example, has two portfolios (Northern Ireland and Wales) and two official shadows, and I’ve included Oliver Letwin, who has no direct counterpart in the Labour ranks. I’ve also stuck to senior posts for both brevity and to avoid getting a string of posts asking who the fuck most the juniors are.

All you have to do is select the FIVE serving Labour Ministers and FIVE shadow ministers from the Tory ranks who you think are most likely to be demoted or leave their respective front benches in the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet reshuffles that will follow the election of the new Labour Party leader (and Prime Minister), and rank them from 1 to 5 in order of which you think is most likely to go.

Blair, Prescott and Reid have already announced their intended departures so they don’t count, which is why they’re shown in Italics and although I have included Gordon Brown and David Cameron in the lists, well you’d have to be an idiot to choose either of them – they’re included simply to help with your deliberations.

So, for example, if you think that Tessa Jowell is the most likely to find herself spending more time with her mortgage papers come the reshuffle, followed by Charlie Falconer, Ruth Kelly, Stephen Timms and Geoff Hoon, then in the comments you’ll provide the following list…

Labour

1. Tessa Jowell

2. Lord Falconer

3. Ruth Kelly…

4. Stephen Timms

5. Geoff Hoon.

And the same kind of thing for the Tories as well – and remember you are trying to pick the most likely losers here.

SCORING

Scoring is pretty straightforward.

For each of your party lists, you get five points if your first choice is demoted, four for your second choice and so on down to one point for your fifth choice. Where a minister doubles up and covers two portfolios they are considered to have been demoted only if they lose BOTH jobs.

You can also score bonus points depending on how they’re demoted.

You get one bonus point for:

A demotion from one of the three Great Offices of State (Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary) or from the new Justice Ministry to a ministerial position inside the Cabinet,

A demotion from any other position to a junior position outside the Cabinet, or

If your choice is shunted over to the House of Lords, other than to the positions of Leader of the Lords or Lords Chief Whip.

You get two bonus points for:

A demotion from one of the three Great Offices of State (Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary) or from the new Justice Ministry to a ministerial position outside the Cabinet, or

A demotion from any other position to the backbenches.

And you get three bonus points for a demotion from one of the three Great Offices of State (Chancellor, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary) or from the new Justice Ministry to the backbenches or for any choice who announces that they will return to the backbenches before the completion of the Labour leadership election on 27th June.

There are also two special bonuses on offer – five points if any of you choices announces their intention to leave parliament at the next general election within forty-eight hours of the reshuffle and ten bonus points should any choice resign their Party Whip or Cross the Floor to another party in the same period.

For the purposes of this game, and to keep the maths simple, the positions of Leader of the House of Commons and House of Lords, Party Chairman and Letwin’s position as Chairman of the Tories Research/Policy department are considered to be on the same level as a standard senior ministerial position (e.g. trade, defence, etc.) but below the three Great Offices of State and Justice Ministry.

ANNOUNCEMENT OF RESULTS

Full results will be announced after BOTH parties have completed their reshuffles, although an interim leaderboard will be published after Labour’s reshuffle, which I would expect to come first.

Oh and Unity’s decision is final, of course…

PRIZES

Nah… this is just a bit of fun for bloggers…

THE LISTS

Remember that Blair, Prescott and Reid are ineligible and you’d have to be an idiot to choose Cameron or Brown, but otherwise you should make you selections from this list.

*Note – The Tories have no official Shadow Deputy Leader (effectively Hague fills this role) and their Solicitor General, Jonathan Djanogly doubles as Ministry of State for Trade and Industry and shadows Ian McCartney.