The Home Office vs the Treasury: No. 10 has become the Department for the Prime Minister’s Legacy, leaving the two great domestic departments to slug it out. But does John Reid have what it takes to thwart the Chancellor’s ambition for the top job?
When John Reid was appointed Home Secretary last month, his staff presented him with a rather macabre gift: a league table of the shortest-serving secretaries of state in the department’s 225-year history. With each passing week he could count how many people he had outlasted. Mr Reid loved the present, especially as he had already beaten the 2nd Earl of Shelburne, who — according to the Home Office briefing at least — had lasted only six days in 1782. Some of Mr Reid’s predecessors managed a whole decade, but none faced the task which has fallen to him. Not only must he repair the Home Office; he must also make it fit for battle with HM Treasury.
For the past nine years the dominant narrative in British politics has been the struggle between No. 10 and No. 11. The struggle is now over; the Chancellor has won, and even those who work for Tony Blair cannot deny he is just playing for time. No. 10 has become the Department for the Prime Minister’s Legacy, drafting lengthy speeches about geopolitics and preparing to launch Mr Blair on a Clintonesque retirement around the world’s lecture circuits. His authority has drained away, his power is gone. It is over.
Rather than accept defeat, however, the Blairites hope to keep their torch burning inside the new glass-fronted headquarters of the Home Office. Mr Reid is to be given all the support he needs to turn the wreckage of that department into something it has not been for years: a political power base that can stand up to the Treasury.
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