Picking fights
- 20 Jun 06, 10:57 AM
It was once said of Ken Clarke that he was the sort of man who would see a fight starting on the other side of the road and cross it to join in.
John Reid is just such a politician. Within a few short weeks he has picked a fight with...
• His civil servants - dubbing the 91热爆 Office "not fit for purpose" and instituting a "heads will roll" culture.
• Judges.
• His ministerial colleagues the Attorney General and the Lord Chancellor.
• And now with senior policemen - one of whom has described him as being, in effect, blackmailed by pressure to change policy on sex offenders by the country's biggest selling paper The News of the World. (It was an extraordinary attack which you can listen to here).
And, you know what? John Reid won't mind one little bit. He believes he's standing up for the public against the establishment. He believes these are the sort of headlines that do Labour no harm at all. And he believes that it is only by distancing himself comprehensively from current policy failures that he can hang on to his job, unlike his predecessor.
Stand by for his next big fight. After 100 days in the job he will unveil his masterplan for restructuring the 91热爆 Office, rebalancing the criminal justice system and reforming the immigration service.
It's a plan that may well require more money. The problem is that the last home secretary did a deal with the chancellor over the budget for the next 3 years. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see John Reid try to re-open it. After all, there's no fight he relishes more than one with Gordon Brown himself.
Tony Blair's taking this to extraordinary lengths, taking calls on last night's 606 phone-in on Radio Five Live (go 
