Fuel prices go on the up and up and Kevin Rudd washes his hands of it.

Cabinet springs a leak.

Brendan Nelson reddens with indignation, but gains a little traction.

The PM looks flustered, harried, under pressure, put upon.

And then, as the worst week of the Rudd Government wore on, there came a glimmer of hope, a little ray of sunshine: the arts elites had sided with Bill Henson!

Here was just the tonic for a PM who’d been looking a little too fraily human … who could now contrive to look more a man of the people. Cop that Cate Blanchett.