Everyone can see Shabana Mahmood is the heir to Blair. Even Tony

The home secretary’s all-but-anointing by Labour’s most successful leader came as she spoke powerfully about faith, culture and identity, writes John Rentoul. The party should listen

Tony Blair has made two things very clear. One is that he thinks Keir Starmer is incapable of rescuing the government. The second is that he thinks Shabana Mahmood could be the solution.

The home secretary was the guest of honour at Blair’s Christmas reception last night. She delivered a tour de force of conviction, warmth and humour, while he, without saying anything explicit, beamed with something that looked like pride. It felt like a historic moment.

Whereas last year’s guest was intriguing – Blair seemed to be cautiously sizing up Angela Rayner as someone who, despite being from a different tribe, had some recognisably New Labour tendencies – this year felt much more like Blair anointing a successor as a reformer of conviction and determination.

The only question in the minds of the assembled ultra-Blairite company – one that Blair didn’t ask – was whether the Labour Party members who have the deciding say in leadership elections would ever vote for her.

Mahmood gave a kind of answer, which was to say that she didn’t care if people tried to put her down: she was going to do what she thinks is right. The implication was that party members and the wider electorate would respond to someone who made bold changes – “go big or go home”, she said at one point – that delivered material results, and who offered a clear sense of direction.

She defended her tough line on immigration by echoing Blair’s phrase, “when you don’t have rules, you get prejudices”. She said: “Why do people feel so angry when rules are broken? It’s because in this country, two of the things we prize above all else are fairness and contribution.”

She said that immigrant working-class communities, such as the one she represents in Birmingham, “react in exactly the same way” as white working-class communities to the abuse of rules.

“We’re very willing, as a country, to give people a chance in our country, to be part of us and to become one of us, if people feel, ‘Well, that’s fair, you came in the proper way,’” she said.

But our rules “are subject to huge amounts of abuse, and I know that when people discover that abuse, they feel pretty hacked off about it”.

The home secretary was the guest of honour at Tony Blair’s Christmas reception on Wednesday (David Maddox)

Halfway through their conversation, Blair started his next question. “The Labour Party...” he said. He left a long pause. He is a terrible interviewer, but he is still effortless at communication. His actual question was about the party “inheriting a very difficult situation” and being divided about what to do, and how she would bring people together. His implication was clear: the government has lost its way and needs new leadership.

Mahmood presented herself as a conviction politician. “I really believe in what I’m doing,” she said. “Once you know your own mind, you have a resilience.”

She talked about her faith. “Is Alastair Campbell here?” she asked (he wasn’t). “You and I can do God. My faith has very much called me to public service.”

She said: “I genuinely believe life is a test, and you’re accountable to God for how you use the privileges you were gifted at birth by God. And that really motivates me. I feel like I am a very privileged individual in my own right. I was born to my particular parents, who are amazing. I was born in this amazing country; I have had an incredible education. I have a lot to account for, and the best way you can do that is to try and change lives for the better of millions of people in your own country.”

She ended with a tone of defiance that had the crowd cheering: “Being a brown woman in politics is not an easy thing, and I have seen off every attempt to deflect me, to shut me up, to knock me down. I faced horrible campaigns and I refuse to lose. I’ve sacrificed a lot to be here, and I haven’t done that to let some two-bit idiot on Twitter tell me I can’t do it.

“There is no racist in this land, or anywhere else in the world, that is going to make me feel like I don’t belong in my own country. And there is no one – Labour Party member, commentator, or anybody else – that’s ever going to make me feel like I’m not really Labour either. So on all these things, I’ve had lots of people tell me I’m not who I am, but I do know who I am.”

Blair did not say “This is my candidate”, but make no mistake, he agreed with her. And I do, too.