David Blunkett, the former home secretary, is poised to make a swift return to the Cabinet in a reshuffle already being planned by Tony Blair to follow a Labour victory in Thursday's general election. The Telegraph has learnt that the Prime Minister's proposed changes reflect his determination to stamp his personal authority on his government as he begins what he has pledged will be his final term in office. | |  | | David Blunkett could soon be returning to the Cabinet |
This includes a powerful "enforcer" role at the Cabinet Office for Mr Blunkett. He will be charged with driving through planned reforms of the public services and playing a leading role in fighting next year's referendum on the European Union's constitution. Other carefully planned moves, according to Mr Blair's closest confidants, include promoting John Reid, the Health Secretary, to Foreign Secretary in place of Jack Straw. Mr Straw is likely to be demoted but to remain in the Cabinet. Alan Milburn, who returned to the political front line last year to head Labour's election campaign, is likely to be rewarded with the post of Trade and Industry Secretary, currently held by Patricia Hewitt. However, he is unlikely to see the job as ideal, since it could to lead to renewed tensions with Gordon Brown, his long-time political foe. Mr Blair has already publicly pledged that Mr Brown will carry on as Chancellor given a Labour win. Details of the planned reshuffle - in which leading supporters of the Prime Minister are given the top jobs - suggest that Mr Blair is confident of securing a comfortable victory this week, despite his public warnings that Labour could be defeated. This newspaper understands from key allies of the Prime Minister that Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary, is Mr Blair's choice to replace Mr Reid at the Department of Health. Stephen Byers, who resigned as Transport Secretary in 2002 after a string of scandals in his department, is expecting to return to the government. "The new Cabinet looks as if it will be unremittingly New Labour," said a close colleague of the Prime Minister. Mr Blair is understood to have been given room for manoeuvre by Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, who has indicated his wish to leave the Government. His job is likely to be filled by Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary. The planned changes will mean that neither Mr Straw nor Mr Hoon, the two cabinet ministers who played the key roles in the Iraq war, will remain in their jobs. Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, and Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, both of whom got their posts after Mr Blunkett resigned in December, are expected to remain at their departments. The proposed changes - some of which could yet fall victim to Mr Blair's habit of "bungling" reshuffles - appear to provide further evidence that the Prime Minister sees his next big political battle as the EU referendum expected next year. The key departmental roles in the campaign for a "Yes" vote will be the Foreign Office and the Cabinet Office, where Mr Blair plans to place two of his strongest political supporters, Mr Reid and Mr Blunkett. Mr Reid - whose wife, Carine Adler, is Jewish - was an early member of Labour Friends of Israel. He is seen within his party as a foreign policy expert and recently gave an interview to the French newspaper, La Tribune, on the National Health Service. The decision likely to provoke the strongest reaction, however, would be the return of Mr Blunkett, less than five months after he resigned. He quit as Home Secretary after learning that an inquiry had found that he had "fast-tracked" a visa application submitted by Leoncia Casalme, the nanny employed by his former lover, Kimberly Quinn. The former minister had denied the original allegations, made in The Telegraph, that he had misused his position to speed up the application. He has made little secret of his desire to return to the Cabinet. Since Mr Blunkett's resignation, Mr Blair has been criticised by the Conservatives for allowing the former home secretary to carry on living in his "grace-and-favour" central London home with rent met by the taxpayer. | 
