Can Clarke survive calls to quit?

Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political Correspondent, BBC News website

As Tony Blair faces testing local elections across England, few in Westminster believe his Cabinet will survive it in one piece.

Clarke is facing calls for new statement

And there is no shortage of MPs, many of them Labour, ready to suggest the prime minister may himself be one of the casualties.

At the moment, Home Secretary Charles Clarke is the minister facing the most concerted calls for his resignation - over the foreign offenders affair.

His latest, robust Commons performance in which he pledged tough action in future to consider deporting all such offenders may have helped him a little with his own MPs.

And, once again, he has attracted the prime minister's support. But all now probably hangs on the outcome of those local polls. And Mr Clarke is not the only one in the firing line.

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott's future is also far from certain, while some have suggested Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and Education Secretary Ruth Kelly are also in the firing line.

Tory leader David Cameron has adopted a canny tactic in urging Mr Blair to bring forward his long-awaited reshuffle, confident in the knowledge it is bound to come swiftly after the local elections anyway.

And that reshuffle will be the most likely time for any blood-letting.

Effective minister

Mr Clarke is still facing the most direct threats, with a chorus of demands for his resignation which has grown louder after it emerged he knew details of the freed prisoners for three weeks before telling the prime minister.

Revelations a freed Somali prisoner was suspected of involvement in the killing of Pc Sharon Beshenivsky in Bradford only add to the pressure.

Tony Blair is still standing by his home secretary although he has done little to disguise his frustration and anger at the way the foreign offenders affair has hit his administration's reputation for competence and ability to protect the public.

Prescott's future is far from certain

And Mr Clarke has admitted that he carries on only for so long as he has the prime minister's support.

Whether that support will continue beyond Thursday's elections and whether it will extend to keeping Mr Clarke in the Cabinet, let alone the Home Office, remains to be seen.

The home secretary is without doubt a tough, determined character and has so far resisted all demands for his head on the grounds he should stay in post to sort out things out.

But his reputation as a competent, effective minister is taking a real battering from the opposition parties, and has been a factor in the election campaigning.

Code of conduct

Mr Prescott is also likely to face continuing pressure over his private life and an affair with his secretary which forced him to virtually abandon the local election campaign.

Mr Cameron has so far echoed the prime minister's view that this is a private matter, and confined himself to describing the deputy prime minister as having made himself look a "fool".

But he has now accepted that there may need to be an investigation into whether Mr Prescott has broken the ministerial code of conduct.

A number of Labour MPs are expressing fears that Mr Prescott's affair is blighting their local election hopes and there is a strong undercurrent of suggestions that he may yet be the first casualty.

Many in Westminster believe that it will be Mr Prescott himself who decides his own future.

The Lib Dems, amongst others, are playing up Thursday's polls as the voters' verdict on the prime minister.

If the expected bad result is combined with the loss of one or more ministers, through either sackings or resignations, it will only add to those people suggesting that the Blair regime is into its dying days.

And that is bound to lead to demands for him to speed up the handover of power to Gordon Brown.

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