While publicly they are expressing sympathy for the recently departed Home Secretary, I think the Conservatives will be cock-a-hoop at claiming such a prestigious scalp.

But when the dust settles on the Blunkett affair, I suspect it will be the Prime Minister who will be wearing the biggest smile.

Opposition parties and powerful elements of the media have been after a Cabinet scalp for some time now.

No-one in the Cabinet lost their job over Iraq but several senior media figures - most notably Greg Dyke at the BBC and Piers Morgan at the Daily Mirror - left their posts.

And, just pausing for a moment, many will find it ironic that Cabinet members can take a country to war on false information and survive but are compelled to resign because a lover's nanny's visa application is fast tracked.

So the Conservatives will be celebrating but, in reality, it is Mr Blair who will be laughing.

In political terms, Mr Blunkett's tangled personal life was a timebomb waiting to go off. Had it detonated during the General Election campaign the effect would have been far more devastating.

Many within the Labour ranks will also be delighted to have seen the back of Mr Blunkett, given his candid but unwise comments to his biographer about his Cabinet colleagues. This was manna from heaven to a hungry Opposition and Mr Blair and colleagues would face almost daily taunting from the Conservatives in the run-up to an election.

Now Blunkett has gone, which draws some of the sting.

Like others, I had begun to think that, whatever the rights and wrongs of Mr Blunkett's behaviour, it had reached the stage where the amount of emotional baggage he was carrying would make it impossible to concentrate on his job.

A custody battle, a furious public slanging match with an ex-lover and a controversial biography would strain anyone's concentration and also raised questions about the man's judgement.

So the PM has acted swiftly to hand the Home Office role to a figure rapidly establishing himself as a big beast of politics.

Words like "bruiser" and "heavyweight" seem designed for Charles Clarke and I have no doubt he will soon come out with some extremely hard-hitting law and order messages.

My hope is that he doesn't make the mistake of his predecessor in becoming obsessed with initiatives. We already have the laws to cover most occasions - it's just they aren't being used effectively.

There are some very able civil servants, but sometimes politicians spend too much time listening to them rather than the practitioners. The result is initiatives that sound good but which tie up resources in red tape. An example is the suggestion that every stop-check by a police officer is recorded in fine detail.

The result is seven minutes of form filling per person stopped. An officer speaking to a gang of teenagers on a street corner finds himself tied up for an hour when a simple notebook entry should suffice.

Rather than embarking on any new initiatives, the new Home Secretary should first of all ensure current resources are being used as efficiently as possible.

Published: 17/12/2004