Blair: 'shallow'

Tony Blair is overly concerned with his day-to-day standing in the country, according to one of his key advisers.

Lord Haskins, the Labour peer and the government's red-tape czar, says the prime minister is not interested in real delivery and cannot be described as a political thinker.

In a damning account of the government's key players, he says the prime minister is too preoccupied with being adored by voters and quotes Robin Cook who once described Blair as "a broad river that ran shallow".

Lord Haskins says Alan Milburn, the health secretary, is "moody" and argues that David Blunkett must be "watched like a hawk".

The former chairman of Northern Foods also delivers a damning verdict on the government's controversial anti-terror laws.

"I don't know if it was Blunkett or Blair, but they were pushing it through because the Americans wanted them to. I kept my head down but I did tell them it broke every regulatory rule in the book: transparency, proportionality, accountability, targeting, everything," he said.

His comments come in an interview with the New Statesman magazine.