There’s a mole (not this one) in the Home Office

Has Jacqui Smith been undermined by a mole at the Home Office? Her closest aides believe someone in their midst is leaking secrets to the Tories.

Smith briefed the Cabinet on Tuesday about her plans for the return of controversial stop-and-search powers. Within hours, David Cameron was out of the blocks announcing that the Tories would revive the SUS laws and successfully grabbed the next day's headlines. Gordon Brown's spin doctor, Damian McBride, was left to catch up with phone calls to lobby journalists at midnight.

The official Smith announcement was to be next Monday. It has now been delayed until later next week. It was bad enough stealing her thunder, but it has left the Home Secretary wondering who is leaking to the Conservatives.

It is not the first time. The Tories

had an advance leak of the Home Office plan to use students as guinea pigs for ID cards. They also had the leak of the decision to delay the introduction of ID cards for at least two years, which put the Government in another spin. Now the Home Office is being swept for insiders who might be leaking to the Tories.

It is not only Smith's drawers that are being rifled. Documents from the office of Defence Secretary Des Browne - concerning the threat to the order for two new aircraft carriers - fell into Tory hands.

What is critical - and why the Tories are loving it - is that leaks which were once made to the media are now being made direct to the Conservative party. Which suggests that the civil service has at last turned against the Government, just as it did in Thatcher’s last days and during the John Major period.

Gordon Brown can hardly complain. He built his reputation on leaks from Government offices during Major's period of power.