Formerly known as the Asbo queen, Tony Blair's former Respect tsar, Louise Casey (pictured), is being tipped for a new Whitehall role.
It is expected that she will be appointed to help communities secretary Eric Pickles "deal with" (sounds ominous) the 120,000 "problem families" David Cameron was showing a fatherly concern for after last month's riots.
The Spectator reports that Pickles' department will take sole charge of the government's proposed family-intervention programme. The move would be seen as a blow to the ambitions of Iain Duncan Smith who was keen to take on the role but whose social conservatism may be anathema to the Liberal Democrats (unlike tuition fees).
Casey and Pickles both have a reputation for being blunt and outspoken so a quiet time is unlikely to be had by all, but why someone so closely associated with the Labour government should be so appealing to Cameron is, on the face of it, incongruous.
Until we remember that, in 2008, Casey called for harsher community sentences and for offenders to have their punishments locally advertised. She had also ruminated about making offenders on community service wear uniforms, a bit like Guantanamo Bay suspects (my comparison, not hers).
Perhaps the pair will have much in common, after all.
