She still has the brisk, friendly manner of a primary school teacher in one of New Labour’s beacon schools and retains close ties with the unions and party activists. “She’s got a fantastic mastery of detail,” says one union leader. “She’s also very good at using it against you.”Ms Hunter could charm and intimidate, sometimes simultaneously. Visitors to Downing Street were known to melt or blush when confronted by her tactile presence.

But it was Lady Morgan, much more than Ms Hunter, who acquired the reputation of being Mr Blair’s fixer and gatekeeper Recently, though, Ms Hunter became a little demob happy. She saw it as her role to put Mr Blair’s case to selected journalists. Some in the Gordon Brown camp detected the fingerprints of Ms Hunter on recent books that portrayed the Chancellor in an unflattering light. Although she remains close to Sue Nye, who works with Mr Brown, Ms Hunter was part of the Downing Street entourage that came to view the Treasury with neurotic fury.

Lady Morgan – with her broader Labour Party perspective – is unlikely to become so embroiled in the rolling soap opera between Downing Street and the Treasury.Yet Ms Hunter could be a troubleshooter as much as a troublemaker. When the former Treasury minister, Geoffrey Robinson, threatened to make hay with his memoirs, Ms Hunter was put on the case. The two of them dined together several times in the period between his departure from government and the publication of what turned out to be a relatively uncontroversial book. Whether it would have been so without Ms Hunter’s intervention is not certain.

There is no one left in Downing Street capable of dealing with the frayed egos of warring personalities in quite the same way. Nor is there anyone there with Ms Hunter’s intuitive sympathy with floating voters Ms Hunter liked a drink and a cigarette. Lady Morgan is a quieter character.While Ms Hunter worse svelte black and navy trouser suits, snappy, short skirts and faintly exotic make up, Lady Morgan prefers a well-cut but well-worn brown suit and sensible shoes.But the less exuberant presence should not be mistaken for a more retiring personality. Lady Morgan can be at least as ruthless as Ms Hunter and has a similar sense of loyalty to the leader. It was Lady Morgan who argued forcefully that Ken Livingstone should be blocked from standing as Labour’s candidate in the London mayoral election. Before 1997 she had the daunting task of convincing various constituencies with big Labour majorities to adopt Blairite candidates.