Blair has survived the Clarke attack. Who’s next? My money is on Hain

After seven weeks of plotting, Charles Clarke could at least have delivered his punchline correctly. He declared to the BBC that as home secretary he had been ‘tough but populist, I beg your pardon, tough but not populist’. He attacked Tony Blair for losing ‘purpose and direction’ but said the Prime Minister should nonetheless stay until 2008. Each of his four interviews was primed to detonate on the same day, and each somehow seemed to misfire. Yet, for all its sloppiness, the Clarke attack has had a profound impact on No. 10.

‘The Prime Minister is running a mile’ announced his official spokesman — he referred to a charity jog but it was true more generally. No. 10 had little desire to retaliate fiercely and its only response was to describe Mr Clarke as ‘disappointed’, a word glowing with understatement. Mr Blair spoke implausibly of his ‘very great regard’ for his old colleague. The No. 10 spin machine, which turned against even Peter Mandelson when he quit the Cabinet, is sprouting nothing but olive branches this time.

Most striking has been John Reid’s Gandhi-like response to Mr Clarke’s highly personalised attack. He was the ‘populist’ in question, and stood further accused of pursuing ‘media-led’ policies, and even of incompetence. Some of Mr Reid’s best (but least printable) quotes have been in response to attacks by other ministers. But this time he too was oozing conciliation. He declared ‘the greatest respect’ for his predecessor and spoke in irenic tones about their ‘different styles’.

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It would have been easy to launch an eviscerating counterattack against Mr Clarke, as some Blair sympathisers were doing independently — here is a failed home secretary, these freelancers said, who left behind what is arguably the worst-run government department outside Italy.