Blunkett isolated as former jails chief steps up attack

David Blunkett has learnt, not for the first time, that in politics the best-laid plans can backfire spectacularly.

The publication of the former Home Secretary's diaries was meant to re-establish his credentials as a Labour heavyweight and set the record straight over the controversies that twice cost him his cabinet job. It was to be followed by a series of interviews, the author reading extracts from his book on Radio 4 and a two-part Channel 4 documentary centring on the memoirs.

But the diaries have been received with a bizarre combination of political anger and public apathy that leaves Mr Blunkett isolated as he ponders his future. His considerable consolation is that the book has earned him an estimated £400,000.

Former colleagues desperate for a period of calm are irritated that, so soon after leaving the Government, he has written of the tensions and rivalries in the Cabinet. The consensus is that he has blown any chance of an early return to public life.

And a devastating riposte to the diaries, which are seen by many fellow Labour MPs as an extended exercise in self-justification, came yesterday from Martin Narey, the former head of the Prison Service.

Mr Narey claimed Mr Blunkett was "hysterical" when the news that rioting inmates had seized control of Lincoln jail was broken to him in October 2002.

"He shrieked at me that he didn't care about lives, told me to call in the Army and 'machine-gun' the prisoners and - still shrieking - again ordered me to take the prison back immediately. I refused. David hung up."

While he accepted the order was not meant to be taken literally, he said the incident showed Mr Blunkett could be "impossible to work with" when he was under pressure.

Mr Narey, who flicked through the diaries in a bookshop at the weekend, said he decided to speak out after his former political master portrayed him as dithering over the incident.

He set out his version of events - strongly denied by Mr Blunkett - in an article in The Times and stepped up his attack on Radio 4's Today programme.

"What you are looking for is calm guidance - it's leadership from a secretary of state, and that was sadly lacking on that occasion. I don't think David was decisive that evening. I think he was reckless," he said.

In the eyes of some Labour MPs, Mr Blunkett was equally reckless in selling serialisation rights of the diaries to the Daily Mail, so long a tenacious critic of the Government.

That anger spilt over when he called together his four fellow Sheffield Labour MPs to offer £30,000 of his book profits to the city's Labour Party. Richard Caborn, the Sports Minister, is reported to have stormed out of the meeting, accusing him of betraying the party.

Mr Blunkett has floated the idea of becoming a kind of "poverty tsar", with a mission to "tackle the underlying causes of inter-generational poverty". With his experience of inner-city Sheffield and the Whitehall machine, he would be well qualified for such a post.

It might be the limit of his ambitions. There is a growing consensus that Mr Blunkett's chances of being offered a cabinet job by Gordon Brown, already faint, have virtually vanished over the past week of headlines.

Public interest in The Blunkett Tapes has faded fast. Foyles bookshop in London sold four copies in the past two days and Amazon is offering buyers a discount of 55 per cent.

Bitter words

John Prescott

"Everyone... said they had never seen John Prescott look at me with such hatred and bitterness..."

A mutual animosity with the Deputy Prime Minister runs through the tapes. He accuses Mr Prescott of "bad mouthing him" and fails to conceal his glee at the DPM's sex scandal.

Gordon Brown

"[Gordon] either bats in and holds on to the chancellor's job or he fails to bat in and Tony will take him out when the military action is finished."

Blunkett mangles a cricketing metaphor to describe the Chancellor's wary attitude to Iraq. He says Mr Brown decided to support the invasion of Iraq five days before the country went to war in March 2003 - when Brown realised his own job would be in jeopardy unless he suppressed any doubts over the invasion.

Jack Straw

"This... department has been running on fresh air for a very long time."

Blunkett accused his predecessor, Jack Straw, of leaving the Home Office in a "giant mess" in 2001. There is a note of regret in the book that the relationship has not "recovered".

Geoff Hoon

"Geoff Hoon was gung-ho..."

Blunkett describes the eagerness of the Defence Secretary over involvement in both campaigns, noting that "Geoff just gets carried away - all this Boys Own stuff".