A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

All I want for Christmas is to read stories like this. Stories that detail the political debilitation of the hardline regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a man who makes the Three Stooges appear savvy and worldly-wise:

A power struggle of titanic proportions has broken out between Iran's newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the country's parliament.

Now the President's domestic political agenda is in danger of collapse, after MPs refused to accept his choices for the top post of oil minister. And a new scandal in Tehran municipality tarnished his election promises to weed out corruption. The President's former parliamentary supporters say they have been alienated by his closed-door style of rule that has opened deep rifts in the ruling conservative faction.

An investigation into municipal spending has revealed Tehran's conservative council exhausted most of its £11.6m budget for cultural activities in the run-up to June's presidential election when Mr Ahmadinejad was city mayor. Officials have admitted there is little documentation for the spending, leading to speculation that it was used unofficially for the election campaign.

On Wednesday, parliamentarians from the President's own political wing cheered and congratulated each other after inflicting a stinging defeat on the President by rejecting his third choice of oil minister, the most important job in the cabinet. With oil prices soaring, the minister controls a sector worth a third of government revenue and has huge influence to support or block funding for the social engineering projects so beloved of the President.

Mr Ahmadinejad made a last-ditch appeal to the Majlis, the Iranian parliament, before the vote. "The government respects the Majlis, but unjustly accusing a brother on an unknown internet site ... is not fair," he said, attempting to swing the vote behind his choice. Mohsen Tasalloti had been accused of having a US residence permit.

Even Mr Ahmadinejad's reformist predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, managed to win support for his first cabinet from a Majlis dominated by conservatives who opposed his reformist ambitions. The failure to appoint an oil minister three months into a new administration is unprecedented and two top government watchdog committees have been tasked with finding a solution to the deadlock.