If anyone wasn't worried about John Reid being mentioned as a possible contenter for the job of Prime Minister before, they should be now.
Two stories coming out of his department this week clearly demonstrate his hardline approach to social policy. First, we have the decision to deport a seven-year-old child trafficked into the country from Kenya despite the potenital opportunity to reunite her in the UK with her mother. Secondly, there is the news that the long-awaited consultation on proposed reforms to services for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children will leave them worse off than other children in care.
How can a government that claims that 'every child matters' justify such actions?
Of course the Home Office would need to be sure about the woman's relationship to the seven-year-old girl. But a simple DNA test could have resolved the issue before dismissing the whole idea out of hand and sending the child back to the country from which she was trafficked and from which her alleged mother fled four years earlier.
As for the proposed reforms, any attempt to give unaccompanied asylum-seeking children less support than other children in care will compound their already vulnerable situation and consign them to a sub-class of children.
There can be no two ways about it. The Department for Education and Skills must wrest responsibility for unaccompanied minors and asylum-seeking families (and young offenders, for that matter) away from the Home Office.
And John Reid must never be given the chance to take up residence in 10 Downing Street.