So on Tuesday December 1st the new Leader of the Assembly Group will be announced.  A full week later the Assembly will vote on next year’s budget and, so we are given to understand, once it has been ‘put to bed’ Rhodri Morgan will relinquish his seat at the centre of the Cabinet bench in the Senedd chamber.

He’s staying on because the budget negotiations are expected to be tricky, and the coalition could be destabilised if he went before they were complete.

But for a whole week Rhodri Morgan will be First Minister in name only and we’ll enter into a period of ‘cohabitation’.  Authority is bound to flow away from the incumbent, and no deal can be reached without the consent of the First Minister in waiting.  This is hardly a recipe for stability.

If I were Ieuan Wyn Jones I’d be looking to make the most of this potenital window of opportunity.  And as my old friend Gareth Hughes has noted, there are already trouble makers looking to exploit the handover.