STEPHEN LEWIS assesses the David Blunkett biography.

IT'S not often a book becomes out of date on the day it is published. Stephen Pollard's new biography achieved that dubious distinction and, ironically, it has itself partly to blame.

It was leaked details of the beleaguered Home Secretary's views on his Cabinet colleagues - views expressed in the pages of Pollard's then officially still-unpublished book - that many believe was the final nail in Mr Blunkett's Cabinet coffin.

The fall-out fatally undermined the Home Secretary at a time when he needed his colleagues' support most. The upshot: he announced his resignation on Wednesday last week - the very day the book came out.

The fact that the book was so rapidly out of date may not, from the publisher's point of view, be quite such a disaster. Because, if standards in political biography were measured by media coverage alone, this book would be a rip-roaring success.

In two serialisations, thousands of words of reportage and endless interviews, its author succeeded in guaranteeing that once it reached the bookstands, his book would be a blockbuster. Whether he also contributed to the downfall of its subject is your decision.

The first you do is go straight to the bits where the former Home Secretary sticks the boot in to his Cabinet colleagues. Some of the most damning comments were levelled at Jack Straw, now the Foreign Secretary but Mr Blunkett's predecessor at the Home Office.

As widely reported in the national media, these comments went as follows: "It (the Home Office Mr Blunkett inherited from Mr Straw) was worse than any of us had imagined possible. God alone knows what Jack did for four years. I am simply unable to comprehend how he could have left it as it was... It was a mess. A giant mess."

It was a shock, therefore, that I discovered these words weren't actually spoken by Mr Blunkett at all, but by an un-named Blunkett "adviser". Was it lazy journalism by some national hack who got hold of an advance copy of the book, flicked through it for controversial material, saw these comments, and mistakenly thought they were spoken by the then Home Secretary himself?

Or, in the murky world of political off-the-record briefings and unattributable back-stabbings, is "adviser" simply a code word that, to those in the know, indicates the words were spoken by Mr Blunkett after all, but he didn't want his name attached to them? I don't know: but it left me feeling there was far more to all this mess than will ever be allowed to come into the open.

The other major selling point of this book - in addition to the odd knife stuck into the back of Mr Blunkett's political colleagues - is, of course, the story of the former Home Secretary's affair with right-wing magazine-owner Kimberly Fortier.

Here, the biogrphy really suffers from the fact that this is an unfinished story. Pollard uses the Fortier material generously - but is hamstrung by the decision to publish his book in the middle of a news storm. As the story develops, it is condemned to seeming increasingly out of date. For all that, Pollard's account of Mr Blunkett's early life is compelling.

The politician's struggle to overcome his blindness and the low expectations his teachers had for him, is powerfully told and Mr Blunkett's voice is unmistakable.

A sad and difficult personal journey is afforded some levity: there's always a guide dog on hand to vomit on the floor of the House of Commons, just as a Tory opponent stands up to speak.

The mapping of Blunkett's political journey, from flying the red flag above Sheffield city council to a national figure on the right of New Labour, is also well judged.

Throughout the book, Blunkett encourages us to believe he has stuck to the same principles throughout his career. He hasn't, of course, but that's not to say he wasn't a successful minister.

Updated: 10:07 Wednesday, December 22, 2004