Political Focus, with Bill Jacobs

TONY BLAIR has started waving a prestigious new Cabinet job in front of his mesmerised ministers. A high-powered campaign chief - along the lines of the Tory Party chairman - in charge of a revamped Cabinet Office modelled on the White House staff of the US President.

The title of this Cabinet Minister without Portfolio would almost certainly be Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster - one often used for the purpose by Conservative Prime Ministers and currently held by Cabinet Office and Public Service supremo David Clark.

This Premier's Office main task would be co-ordinating government policy and presentation in order to win the next election. It would be very much a high-profile front-man or woman job with ostensibly high rewards for the task.

But as names are put forward for the new post, contenders might well look at the record of Tory chairmen and decide it is a poison chalice.

Failure to win the election means that the campaign supremo's career is at an end as the Prime Minister and his senior lieutenants swiftly shuffle blame towards him.

Victory has scarcely greater rewards as the successful occupant of Number Ten grabs the glory and jealous rivals are quick to maximise their own contributions and run down the party chief of staffs. Sir Brian Mawhinney might have gained a knighthood for his efforts in helping John Major mastermind election defeat, but his political credibility has been terminally damaged.

Of the more obscure Tory chairmen, John Gummer, Jeremy Hanley and Peter Brooke all came out with reputations harmed rather than enhanced.

Of the high-profile holders, Margaret Thatcher's tying of Kenneth Baker to her apron-strings managed to ensure that although he could not challenge her for her job and that when she lost it, his once high-flying political career went down with hers.

Lord Tebbit - although he won the election - never recovered from the allegations of panic and unseemly spats with Lord Young that marred the campaign. John Major's architect of success in 1992, Chris Patten, lost his Bath seat and his political career has yet to come out of deep freeze.

Cecil Parkinson, whose 1983 victory left him high in the esteem of Mrs Thatcher, suffered from the twin evils of the media spotlight and jealousy from colleagues.

His high-profile and masterminding of the "Family Values" strategy that underpinned the campaign made his affair with Sara Keays and their love child Flora into a devastating bombshell.

Indeed the only Prime Ministerial aide, if not party chairman, to prosper as Mrs Thatcher's closest confidante was Willie Whitelaw when he was made "Minister for Banana Skins". But his success was mirrored only by the demise of David Hunt when he took on a similar role for John Major some years later. So, the Labour hopefuls might be well advised to take note of and take fright at this sorry history.

Current Minister without Portfolio (outside the Cabinet) Peter Mandelson is deeply ambitious and would be doubly unwise to take the post. He is already hugely unpopular with his Ministerial colleagues and, while an excellent back-room schemer, appalling at public presentation.

Blackburn MP Jack Straw, immensely successful when combining environment spokesman with campaigns chief in Opposition, is far too canny and happy in his berth as Home Secretary.

Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam would probably find her career safer in Ulster than in the

Cabinet Office - despite its reputation as a political graveyard, the

Province has rarely done anything but enhance the status of its Cabinet overlords.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Alistair Darling is keen to carry on overseeing the tight financial strategy aimed at producing the "war chest" to finance the public sector spending needed to win the next election. He knows that quiet success here will win him more kudos and support.

Ministerial risings stars outside the Cabinet - Stephen Byers, school standards, and Alan Milburn, health, - might find the new job very attractive as a means of promotion to the top table. But the evidence of rapid relegation from the Tory years should persuade them to modestly resist the offer if it comes. For what serious politician wants to be the millennium's equivalent of Ken Baker, Brian Mahwinney or Norman Tebbit?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.