ninme

Lawdy. Poor Cameron.

Telegraph – Smith gets on with the job of keeping us safe. By Rachel Sylvester

The reshuffle he executed on his second day in office symbolised change, not just of ministers, but also in himself: inclusive, non-tribal, outward-looking. His reaction to the attempted terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow was demonstrably different to Tony Blair’s – Mr Brown did not say that the rules of the game had changed, or that the kaleidoscope had been shaken.

He was calm, understated, low-key. The emphasis was on the importance of vigilance by the public, rather than on action by the Government – ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. The Downing Street sofa has been put into storage; he has relied on the Civil Service machine rather than turning to Ed Balls for advice. It is said that the security services are relieved by the shift away from what they saw as a tendency to “play politics” with terror.

And if anyone embodies the change in the Government it is Jacqui Smith, the first woman to be appointed Home Secretary. The former teacher has had an extraordinary baptism of fire since getting the job four days ago. But she has taken the bodyguards, the bullet-proof windows and the terrifying intelligence briefings in her stride. Her performance in Parliament and in public has been impressive. In the Commons yesterday, David Davis, the shadow home secretary, praised the “calmness and dignity” with which she had handled what must have been the most difficult time of her career.

Ms Smith’s reassuring manner could not be more different to the testosterone-charged attitude of her predecessor, John Reid. Instead of stoking up public fears, she has sounded rational: on the Today programme yesterday, she stressed that the threat level has been “severe” for some time, rather than emphasising that it was now “critical”.

She did not talk about a “war on terror”, send tanks to Heathrow or promise a 10-point plan. Even when she said that security was being stepped up in 900 public places, she made it sound as if the situation was under control. A friend who has known her since student days says: “She was always the sensible one, and she still is. She’s not a panicker. When her children are ill, she doesn’t immediately assume they’ve got meningitis.”

Hell, maybe I’m a bit smitten, too. At the end of this post I had another sentence saying something snarky about her because she’s a woman, she’s Labour, and suddenly she’s in the cabinet, but then I deleted it cuz whaddo I know. Good think I did.