David Blunkett the puppeteer

By Jon Silverman Home affairs analyst

Is David Blunkett having a laugh? His seemingly fickle pronouncements have surprised his opponents, but it's a dangerous game to play.

Will the real David Blunkett please stand up? Is it the home secretary who causes apoplexy amongst ethnic communities by telling them that they should speak English at home?

Is it the home secretary who was furious with a High Court judge for ruling that he had acted unlawfully in deporting a family of Afghan asylum seekers?

Mr Blunkett has admitted to problems with returning refugees

Or is it the home secretary who came to the lion's den of the Police Federation conference in May and behaved like a pussy cat and apologised for pushing through reforms too hastily?

Or indeed, the man who sat before a committee of MPs only last week and undermined his own government's immigration policy by admitting that targets for removing failed asylum seekers were hopelessly unrealistic?

Home secretaries achieve distinction in different ways. Some, like Michael Howard, did it by sounding the same note - "prison works" was the mantra - whatever the circumstances. Others, like Roy Jenkins, in the 1960s, ushered onto the statute book a reforming agenda which softened some of society's more intolerant edges.

Wrong-footing

But David Blunkett's signal achievement, so far, is to wrong-foot his opponents, pushing them into positions their parties do not feel comfortable with and which, in the long-term, are unsustainable.

Michael Howard: "Prison works"

Take Oliver Letwin, the cerebral former Thatcherite backroom boy turned shadow home secretary. This week he attacked the demonisation of asylum seekers and earlier in the year, made a notable speech calling for a "neighbourly society" to tackle the causes of criminal offending.

As a critique of the largely sterile debate about crime, it was thoughtful and well-received by most observers. But, if the figures for violent crime are still rising in three years time, does anyone seriously expect the Tories to go into an election campaign carrying such a banner rather than a set of pledges to get tough with the thugs and to be "firm but fair" on asylum?`

And take Simon Hughes, the likeable Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman. At his party's conference in Brighton, he did what no-one with his portfolio has ever done and proclaimed the virtues, or at least, the necessity, of imprisonment.

Prison has now been embraced by the Lib Dems

Is this a policy which he genuinely believes Lib Dem activists are going to push with enthusiasm on the doorsteps or an attempt to claw back some of the ground lost to New Labour since Tony Blair's tenure as home affairs spokesman?

But David Blunkett's political ingenuity as a puppet-master is also a potential weakness. At the same home affairs committee session at which he rubbished the asylum removal targets, he also said this in relation to comprehensive figures on street crime which he intends to publish next month: "If we fail, we should be big enough to say so. If we are not meeting targets, we should admit it."

It sounds like refreshing candour and all the more unexpected coming from a senior minister.

Does he mean it?

But throughout the criminal justice system, there is widespread scepticism about whether Mr Blunkett meant what he said.

Who knows what Mr Blunkett will decide next for the police

From police officers to probation staff to prison governors, struggling under a deluge of performance indicators and Whitehall-inspired yardsticks, the idea that this government, above all, is about to turn its back on targets is just not credible.

Sure, say the cynics, it was juicy fodder for the press and may have helped defuse criticism from members of the home affairs committee.

But don't expect us to buy it. And once cynicism takes root in the criminal justice system, like a malignant weed, even the most imaginative reform programme may refuse to flower.