BLUNKETT PROVES HIS ABILITIES

Britain's Home Secretary Doubts His Country Is Ready For A Blind Prime
Minister, But Some Speak Of Him As A Successor To Tony Blair.

LONDON -- By conventional wisdom, David Blunkett should not have made
it to the top of British government.

The home secretary is a politician who doesn't suffer fools. He is
unflinchingly blunt in an administration that weighs every word. And
Blunkett, the country's chief law enforcement officer, is blind.

Add to that the fact that his guide dog threw up in the venerable
House of Commons debating chamber--most impolite--and Blunkett should
be back in working-class Sheffield where his early teachers suggested
a career in piano tuning. Blunkett, however, has never allowed
conventional thinking to get in his way. Despite his hardships, or
perhaps because of them, he has risen to one of the most powerful
posts in Britain and is among the most effective members of Prime
Minister Tony Blair's Cabinet. Increasingly, he is mentioned as a
potential heir to the Labor Party leadership--particularly by those
who dislike Gordon Brown, the ambitious chancellor of the
exchequer--whenever Blair moves aside.

But could he--would he--do the job at 10 Downing St.. And would
Britain elect a blind prime minister.

"Fortunately, there isn't a vacancy," Blunkett said in an
interview.

"It is unlikely that Britain would be ready for a blind prime minister
because it takes a long time for people to get used to the idea that
someone with a disability can work at the level I am working at now,"
he said. Besides, he added, "I am working at my capacity, and I enjoy
the job I have very much."

Such candor from the 54-year-old Blunkett has not quashed speculation
among the chattering classes. Nor has the fact that the job of top cop
rarely serves as a springboard to the prime minister's office.

Blunkett's high standing is all the more remarkable given the times,
during which he has taken responsibility for such controversial issues
as immigration, law enforcement and the nation's security. He assumed
the Home Office portfolio last summer as Britain's worst race riots in
decades broke out in northern England, and a few months before the
Sept. 11 attacks. The events thrust him to the forefront of debates on
race, crime and civil rights almost before he had unpacked.

His responses have confounded critics and allies alike. Blunkett
offended many traditional Labor Party supporters by threatening to use
water cannons against rioters of South Asian ancestry. He insisted
that immigrants should learn English and adopt British ways when
coming into "our home," although most of the rioters were
British-born. And he introduced detention centers for asylum seekers,
a move long favored by the opposition Tories.

On the other hand, he proposed a liberal, green-card-style program to
allow skilled and unskilled workers into Britain to fill labor
shortages. And although he is adamantly opposed to the use of
recreational drugs, Blunkett has in effect decriminalized marijuana to
free up police resources.

"David is interested in what is going to be most effective in terms of
achieving his policy outcome," said former aide Conor Ryan. "He made a
pragmatic decision on cannabis because he is concerned about hard drugs."

Blunkett's biggest battle so far has been with human rights activists
and leftist members of his own party over the sweeping anti-terrorism
legislation he pushed through Parliament in December.

The law allows the government to detain, indefinitely and without
trial, foreigners suspected of links to terrorism if they cannot
legally be deported because of the threat of torture or death at home.
It also gives security officials unprecedented access to information
from schools, hospitals, tax authorities, passenger and freight
carriers and Internet providers.

Blunkett's new powers have fueled charges that Britain, already one of
the most closely monitored societies in the West, is becoming ever
more of a Big Brother state.

"He is putting through authoritarian policies which go against many
civil liberties. He overreacted to terrorism attacks with speed and
almost panic," said political science professor Vernon Bogdanor of
Oxford University.

Nonetheless, Britain's skeptical public and highly critical media give
Blunkett good reviews. Some people assert that this is a reflection of
his political skill, while others say no one wants to be seen beating
up on a blind man. Still others believe it is because Blunkett is a
rare politician.

"You can't help but like him," said Philip Johnston, home affairs
editor for the conservative Daily Telegraph newspaper, which is
usually hostile to the Blair government. "The hardships he has had to
overcome are quite extraordinary. . . . He is likable, amusing, he's
not slick."

Gary Younge, a columnist for the left-of-center Guardian newspaper who
has slammed the home secretary for a "regressive" approach to race
issues, adds that Blunkett has "an emotional intelligence lacking in
the political leadership of all persuasions for some time. Mr.
Blunkett does not have to go off the record to sound like a human being."

Blunkett comes from a part of northern England known for its
plain-spoken ways. Unlike most members of Parliament, he represents an
area where he was born and grew up.

There is a Dickensian quality to Blunkett's early life in industrial
Sheffield, a city in South Yorkshire whose dreariness was made famous
by the 1997 film "The Full Monty." Born blind to loving parents who
lived in one of the country's poorest housing projects, he was sent to
boarding school at age 4 because there were no day schools that could
cope with his disability.

When Blunkett was 12, his foreman father fell into a vat of boiling
water on the job at the East Midlands Gas Board and died an agonizing
month later. The company refused to pay compensation for two years,
driving the family into a poverty that few, if any, British
politicians have known.

"There is nothing even faintly romantic about being poor and hungry,"
Blunkett wrote in his 1995 autobiography, "On a Clear Day."

But Blunkett has no patience for sentimentalism, least of all about
his own life. When asked about the hardships he has overcome, he pulls
a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes mock tears from his eyes.

In an era of limited options for the disabled and the working class,
Blunkett went to night school to take college preparation courses and
then attended Sheffield University, where he graduated as a teacher.
He and his wife, Ruth, had three sons before they divorced in 1990. He
has not remarried.

Some Britons speak of Blunkett's success as a kind of American dream,
but he says there are differences.

"The opportunities I had, going to university and all those things,
were built on other people having made decisions, changed the world,"
Blunkett said.

"The individualism that's built into the American psyche isn't here
and, therefore, we have to recognize that we have a form of welfare
state which, at its very best, provides the jumping-off point for
people to improve their lives," he said. ". . . At its worst, it
cushions people to the point where they don't feel that necessity to
take risks and control over their own lives. Our task [as a
government] is to get that balance right."

Blunkett won a seat on the Sheffield City Council at 22, took over as
leader of the Council in 1980, and was elected to Parliament in 1987.
When Labor won power 10 years later, he was named secretary of
education and employment. During his four years in the post, he
reduced class sizes and oversaw an improvement in national test
scores. He also introduced performance-related pay for teachers and
the country's first university fees.

When Labor won a second term last year, Blunkett was promoted to home
secretary, where he is taking on police reform and street crime along
with international terrorism.

His day begins with briefings from aides, who go over newspapers and
documents with him to find out what he wants committed to tape or
Braille. "What sighted people forget is how much speed reading they
do, moving from one page to another," said Ryan, the former aide.

After a long day of meetings, hearings and sessions of Parliament,
Blunkett takes a dozen or more tapes home in the evening, Ryan said.

The home secretary compensates for his lack of sight with other
senses. Blunkett easily recognizes voices and seems able to follow two
conversations at once--even when he is holding one of them. And he has
an uncanny sense of when people have come and gone from a room,
however quietly they may move.

Blunkett stands tall and moves confidently with the assistance of his
dog, Lucy, a black curly-coated retriever mix-breed. When he meets
someone new, he is quick to put the person at ease. He refuses to
adapt his language to his disability, often speaking of having
"watched" a television program or offering to "see you later."

"He hates terms like 'visually impaired,' " Ryan said. "He worries
more about content than terminology."

That's the Yorkshireman in him, constituents said during one of his
weekly trips home to Sheffield.

When Blunkett arrived to speak to tenant associations about his war on
street crime, the headline greeting him on the afternoon Star
newspaper was "Police Chief Mugged." Blunkett was unfazed.

"They're no less vulnerable than anyone else. Nobody is exempt," he
said. "There's no point saying national crime statistics show a 12%
overall drop in crime last year if people don't actually experience
that in their own lives and families."

Brown, Blunkett's Cabinet colleague, is generally presumed to be the
one who will take over the party when Blair is ready to step down. The
chancellor of the exchequer has broad support among Labor members of
Parliament and the trade unions.

But Blunkett's rising star became apparent to political reporter Colin
Brown, who is no relation to the chancellor, last summer at the launch
of the home secretary's latest book, "Politics and Progress." The
reception was attended by the in-crowd of "new Labor"--the secretaries
of health, transportation and education, and Blair's wife, human
rights lawyer Cherie Booth.

"Everybody was there, and they weren't there just for moral support,"
said Brown of London's Independent on Sunday newspaper. "It was easy
to see what was going on. They were saying that David has the support
of Downing Street."