The Week In Politics: A neat asylum trick – but Blair's playing a dangerous game

When cabinet ministers gathered for a political session without their civil servants eight days ago, their discussion of the domestic political scene was dominated by two issues – crime and asylum.

Ministers had before them a gloomy report by Philip Gould, Tony Blair's hyperactive opinion pollster, saying that crime was now the number one issue of concern to voters. In joint second place come the National Health Service and asylum, followed by "national security" and terrorism. The theme linking all these issues is "insecurity", compounded by uncertainty over the economy and pensions.

The findings that most alarmed ministers were on asylum. Despite the tough approach adopted by Blair and David Blunkett, many feel Britain is shouldering an unfair share of the world's asylum problems. A typical comment made during Gould's focus group sessions is: "We work hard, we pay our taxes, so why do we let asylum-seekers come here and receive special treatment and state handouts?"

Gould warned that the far-right British National Party (BNP) was well-placed to exploit the asylum crisis and latent fears on immigration. His warning was timely; the BNP had won a council by-election in Halifax the previous night. Gould feared further BNP gains in the North, in council elections in May.

His other finding was that many people feared terrorists were posing as asylum-seekers, reflecting a torrent of publicity over recent arrests and the killing of Detective Constable Stephen Oake in Manchester. In fact, only three of the 500,000 people seeking asylum in the past 10 years have been linked to terrorism, but headlines in most newspapers tell a different story.

Gould's report was depressing for Blair, who hoped his approach would insulate Labour from the backlash suffered by socialist parties in France and the Netherlands. Now, Blair judged, he had to get tough all over again. Hence his decision to float the idea, in his BBC TV interview with David Frost last Sunday, that Britain might opt out of parts of the European Convention on Human Rights if its latest measures to curb asylum-seekers fail.

The Prime Minister's statement was rehearsed. The previous day, The Daily Telegraph had predicted – accurately – that the Tories were ready to renounce the convention. Alastair Campbell, his director of communications and strategy, was quick to tell Sir David's staff that Blair had never spoken about a review before.

The trick worked: Monday's headlines were suitably tough. But Blair did not entirely blunt the Tories' attack. Their hardline policy could have been written in response to one of Gould's focus group reports. Iain Duncan Smith scored a rare hit at Prime Minister's Questions when he contrasted Blair's comments on Sunday with Blunkett's rejection of opting out of the convention's provisions the previous week.

Some ministers are rightly worried that Labour is being sucked into a dangerous game with the Tories on who can come up with the toughest policies. Rather than neutralise the threat from extremist parties, will the talk of further crackdowns merely play into their hands? As Patrick O'Donoghue, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Lancaster, warned, there is a risk that Labour and the Tories "scapegoat" refugees to score political points. "I think there is a danger, if politicians are going to attack asylum-seekers, it is encouragement for others in our society to go on the attack," he said.

Blunkett has been attacked by the left for being illiberal and from the right for not cracking down hard enough. He was brave enough this week to risk the wrath of The Sun, 510,000 of whose readers have signed a petition urging the Government "to stop Britain becoming a soft touch for illegal asylum-seekers".

The Home Secretary told a conference of Catholic leaders he was horrified to read a Sun editorial on "the tide of disease and terrorism pouring into the country in the guise of asylum-seekers".

He said: "At these moments in history people become more introverted and more xenophobic. We can't respond to impossible demands and close down Britain, but we can respond to people's fears. And we can open up our goodwill and our hearts and ears and country to those genuinely fleeing persecution." Despite his hardline reputation, Blunkett believes that the right strategy is to make last year's changes to the asylum laws work. He is more cautious than Blair's anxious advisers on launching another raft of reforms to grab a few more headlines.

* Some precious light relief in a week dominated by the deadly serious business of Iraq was provided by the latest Commons jousting between John Prescott and what he sees as the "army brigade" on the Tory benches.

Whenever the Deputy Prime Minister makes a Commons statement in the firefighters' dispute, he is questioned by Tory MPs who trumpet the role of regiments based in their constituencies. On Tuesday, he could not resist a pop at Patrick Mercer, MP for Newark and the most senior former army officer at Westminster. "Another ex-Army type. They have always brought to the House some arrogance." The feeling is mutual.

* Tony Blair travels to Le Touquet on Tuesday for what should have been a "kiss and make up" session with Jacques Chirac, the French President, who postponed the meeting after the two men clashed over the Common Agricultural Policy at an EU summit last October.

Officials have cooked up a defence co-operation deal but it may fail to paper over the widening divide between Britain and France over Iraq and Zimbabwe.

Blair is increasingly exasperated by Chirac's behaviour. When the Prime Minister tried to talk to him about Iraq, I am told, 10 days passed before the President finally deigned to take his call.

a.grice@independent.co.uk