Downfall of a titan

ANOTHER day, another David Blunkett story. This weekend there were two: more controversy over his directorship of a DNA-testing company, and a blazing row with Tony Blair over sicknessbenefit cuts. In previous weeks we've learned about his relationship with a blonde estate agent, and a letter written on House of Commons notepaper objecting to a planning application.

What on earth has happened to Mr Blunkett? He was once admired for his straight talking and decency and regarded - not least by the Prime Minister himself - as Tony Blair's outrider. Now he looks vulnerable, a problem for Mr Blair.

The most politically significant of these developments is his row with the Prime Minister. Ever since Tony Blair became Labour leader, he has relied on David Blunkett implicitly.

Despite their very different backgrounds, the two men have both had an instinctive understanding of voters' minds.

It was this bond that ensured that, despite having to resign in disgrace last year, Mr Blunkett was brought straight back by Mr Blair in June. But this weekend's leak of a stern memo from Mr Blair to Mr Blunkett, and his own intemperate response, shows that their relationship is at best frayed.

Despite the Work and Pensions Secretary's severe reputation, he is resisting the Prime Minister's more draconian demands for benefit cuts.

But this row is less about policy than about Mr Blunkett's political positioning. Like everyone else in government, he is looking to a time beyond Tony Blair. He wants a big job under Gordon Brown and no longer wants to be seen as a Blairite hatchet man.

In my conversations with Mr Blunkett for my biography, he would tell me how frustrated he got when constituents would complain about their disabilities.

He had overcome his; why couldn't they do the same? Whatever the detail of the debates over incapacity benefit, there is no doubt that Mr Blunkett's sympathies do not lie with those he would consider shirkers.

Yet all that manoeuvring may be called into question by the difficulties that now beset Mr Blunkett. The political skill that has served Blunkett so well since he first entered serious politics in 1976, as chairman of Sheffield City Council's Social Services Committee, is his impeccable judgment. Judgment in knowing politically what was doable. Judgment in knowing with whom he should ally, and whom he should ditch. And judgment in knowing how to behave.

That judgment deserted him during his relationship with Kimberly Quinn. He was in love with her and put that - and his bond with his son - above all else, including his career.

It was over a failure of judgment that he was forced to resign. Having vociferously denied any involvement in the application for his son's nanny's visa, the official inquiry then discovered an email that showed he had indeed mentioned it to officials.

What is clear now is that his judgment has not returned - for that is the thread linking all his recent problems-As a single man, Mr Blunkett is entitled to see whoever he wants. But what he is entitled to do and what makes political sense can be two very different things. The old David Blunkett would have run a mile from a friendship that, for a Cabinet minister, was clearly misguided.

Then we learned that he had failed to consult the Independent Advisory Committee about his position on the board of DNA Bioscience. With the company seeking to win government contracts, including some from Mr Blunkett's own department, all sorts of allegations are now flying around.

The old David Blunkett would have smelled the possible stench from way off.

His triumph over seemingly insuperable handicaps is an inspirational story.

It is impossible not to be awed by the scale of Mr Blunkett's achievements.

But it is just that awesome scale which makes the damage to his reputation so tragic. Where once Mr Blunkett was a titan, today he has lost his political - and personal - bearings.

When I first started interviewing people for his biography, it was immediately obvious that Mr Blunkett inspired exceptional loyalty. People who had not spoken to him for decades would talk to me only if he told them that they could. This loyalty had a practical side. He has always had a circle of friends and colleagues who have been his "coping mechanism", from his student friends who would read him textbooks to, as a minister, aides who would dictate documents and summaries of newspapers for him to listen to. At every stage of his political life, he has had exceptionally close advisers whose judgment he respected and who revered him.

But something has changed in these relationships, too. Take the seemingly trivial matter of the letter he wrote on House of Commons headed notepaper to Wandsworth council saying he was "deeply concerned" about a building development near a property he owns.

Even if it was, as he insists, an "administrative error", his own staff should have spotted such a mistake.

His advisers used to protect him. That they did not is itself symbolic of the fact that the once tight ship, and unparalleled loyalty, is no more.

Where two years ago I could not find a word of criticism from those around him, today there are people who know him and work with him who will, albeit in tones of distress, speak freely of their concerns that he is not the man he was. They acknowledge that he has changed.

He is regarded now as fair game - a man who was brought back into the Cabinet with unseemly haste and who now seems to be a source of ongoing embarrassment to the Government.

Where once he was respected by friends and opponents alike, today even friends worry he may be on the last legs of his ministerial career. His opponents see him as a vulnerable, weak link in the Cabinet. That is the real sign of how bad things now are for David Blunkett.

.David Blunkett by Stephen Pollard is published by Hodder at Pounds 7.99.

(c)2005. Associated Newspapers Ltd.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.