Knife crime U-turn another blow for blunder woman tipped as a future Prime Minister

And yet that is precisely what some Labour MPs believe should be the next step for the former teacher from the Midlands who is supposed to keep us safe in our beds.

Her devoted supporters cling to the hope that beneath her now legendary cleavage beats the heart of another Margaret Thatcher.

U-turn: despite an array of blunders and political disasters Home Secretary Jacqui Smith still continues to attract support from her party

As they contemplate the dire headlines this morning, however, they may be forced to conclude that the party's own Worcestershire Woman displays none of the Iron Lady's instinctive flair for leadership.

Why, after racking up an impressive array of blunders, U-turns and political disasters, she continues to seduce so many in her party remains a mystery.

By rights, last night's U-turn on her bizarre scheme for allowing those who do the stabbing to visit the bedside of those who have been stabbed should deal a damaging blow to her ambitions.

Surely, MPs will say, no senior minister who has had to retreat with such haste on an issue of such importance can have a future as a leader?

Her aides say that it was never a question of allowing criminals anywhere near knife victims; she was merely caught out by a spin operation that went horribly wrong.

But critics will seize on the episode as further damaging proof that Miss Smith does not have a grip on her notoriously unruly department.

For all the hype that accompanied the arrival of the first woman Home Secretary last year, her time has been marked by more lows than highs in a department notorious as a graveyard for political careers.

She got off to a great start on the day of the attempted bombings in London and Glasgow.

Speaking quietly and lucidly before the cameras, she appeared to embody the kind of no-nonsense calm the public wanted to hear in a crisis.

But a year on, it may be fairest to say that her initial success for too long covered up subsequent failures.

Soon after her appointment, and a day after taking charge of the Government's drug policy review, she chalked up another first, becoming the first holder of the office to admit to smoking cannabis, a confession that came with somewhat-undignified pictures of her carousing with friends at university.

Like her predecessors, she has since been caught out by embarrassing Home Office revelations, including that her office had tried to cover up the reality of the Government's failure to deal with foreign prisoners.

Her Commons performances are frequently derided as wooden.

And yet she continues to exert an extraordinary power over many Labour MPs who see in her an easy-going, almost mumsy alternative to Gordon Brown.

The 45-year-old mother of two from Malvern, in their eyes, embodies the kind of middle-class voters who feel let down by Labour.

When she faced down critics of the 42-day terror detention plan, her assured performance generated another flurry of excited speculation on her behalf from Labour MPs desperate for an alternative to Mr Brown.

It is that desperation that is likely to have blinded them to truth about Miss Smith, who too often in public appears to be struggling with the demands of what many say is an impossible job.