In fact, there are two types of density, according to a recent study by Peter Gordon of the University of Southern California and Sanford Ikeda of the State University of New York, Purchase.

WSJ: To Build Creative Cities, the Sky Has Its Limit by Richard Florida

Like Peter Robinson and Gordon Brown he had been a number two for some time and, like them, it was always believed he would eventually get the top job.

BBC: Changes at Republic's top

It is also claimed that Mr Prescott's role as deputy prime minister has been diminished over the months and that Chancellor Gordon Brown and Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson are effectively acting as joint deputies.

BBC: Blair weakens Prescott powerbase

Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness will meet Gordon Brown in London.

BBC: Northern Ireland leaders to meet Brown over PMS

"BP realizes it has to change, " said Peter Hitchens, an oil analyst at Panmure Gordon.

WSJ: BP Shakes Up Management

Will Gordon Brown, the chancellor, exult in the absence of Peter Mandelson, his old enemy and Mr Blair's confidant?

ECONOMIST: Politics

Peter Mandelson, Europe's trade commissioner before becoming Gordon Brown's minister for everything, described the dispute as the biggest, most difficult and most expensive in WTO history.

ECONOMIST: World trade and commercial aircraft

During the 2001 General Election campaign, he travelled the length of Britain in a 1976 Volkswagen camper van sprayed with the Newsnight logo - which Peter Mandelson famously stormed out of in Hartlepool after being asked whether the-then Chancellor Gordon Brown was having a perfect election campaign.

BBC: Jeremy Vine