Political Focus, with BILL JACOBS. . .

JACK Straw is enjoying his holiday today safe in the knowledge that he has kept his job as Foreign Secretary.

All the talk of Cabinet reshuffles before Westminster's summer recess proved to be so much hotter -- like many things in the House of Commons.

Instead all we got was the announcement of Peter Mandelson as European Commissioner.

Mr Straw might have felt confident of surviving any government shake-up -- but so did his friend Robin Cook before he was summarily booted out of the Foreign Office to become leader of the Commons after the last General Election.

Since then he has quit the Cabinet and become the leading critic of Tony Blair's policy on Iraq. But he retains a close friendship with Blackburn MP Mr Straw which political observers think could yet be significant.

Meanwhile Mr Straw has quietly elevated himself at the Cabinet pecking order from "solid but not inspiring" to "competent, reliable and effective."

The problems that he faces are in his constituency -- the British National Party on one side attacking him for being too friendly to the Asian community and Muslims furious over his role in the Gulf War and its aftermath.

But Mr Straw's influence is clear. There is little doubt that he and Chancellor Gordon Brown were crucial in keeping Mr Mandelson from being brought back into the Cabinet.

How Mr Straw will get on with the man known as the "Prince of Darkness" when he is at Brussels is an interesting point.

Maybe Mr Straw is confident that it is only a matter of time before "Mandy" implodes again -- and that will place a serious question mark over Mr Blair's judgment. Then maybe the time that the mud sticks on "Teflon Tony" and he has to stand down.

And there's a significant school of thought at Westminster that a Straw-Cook ticket could sneak the Blackburn MP into 10 Downing Street and his rebellious friend into No 11 coming through the middle between Mr Brown and Home Secretary David Blunkett.