In his early 1980s heyday as the top rottweiler of Fleet Street, legend had it that editor of The Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie dashed off a redundancy letter to the tabloid's resident astrologer which infamously began: 'As you will no doubt have already seen in the stars..!'

The exit stage right of Esther McVey from the housing brief was possibly easier to predict than some of what transpired last week's ministerial merry go round.