Reiding between the lines

John Reid comes in for a bit of flack today. In the Guardian, a self-penned piece does exactly what you'd expect a self-penned piece from John Reid to do: it attempts to shout down his detractors and point out how crap his department is.

Iain Dale sets out a series of questions that he wants Reid to answer. One of these is "Has Gordon Brown offered you the post of Home Secretary?". Iain Dale is usually quite astute , but I think he's misread the situation here.

Reid's been across the cabinet - his survival skills are well honed. He must therefore know that the real threat he facts is not from within his department; he's successfully implanted the message that the Home Office is "not fit for purpose" and continues today to firefight future fiascos by claiming that these are inevitable.

No, Reid knows that the real threat to his future lies in the post-Blair settlement, and his statements about the Home Office are made with one eye on his position in Brown's first cabinet.

His determination to split the Home Office is part of this. Despite the range of posts he's held previously, he hasn't stayed long in any of them. Health, Defence, Cabinet Office - Reid is the troubleshooter, the bruiser, the roll-up-your-sleeves and get it done strong man. He's not there for the long haul: he doesn't know how. Moreover, he hasn't exactly made many friends at the Home Office. The risk, therefore, is that he'll be left in post by Brown.

This would be a disaster for Reid. He must ask how long it will be before the "not fit for purpose" epithet ceases to be applied to the department and begins to be applied to the minister. Thus he has decided to lobby for the department to be split: rather than captain a cursed ship, he'll scupper it, return to port and wait for another command.

This is a risky strategy: the Home Office is one of the great offices of state, and if Reid wants a promotion, there is only the Foreign Office and the Treasury to aspire to - and Brown has his favoured candidates for both of these.

Before Christmas, Reid was widely tipped as a potential Deputy Leadership contestant. Recently, these whispers have died away (he's now out to 33/1 with Ladbrokes.) He would appear to have let it be known that the Deputy Leadership is not for him.

I wonder why.