WHY, HAVING resisted for six years, has the Government suddenly decided that it is after all keen to consider “Sarah’s Law”, which would allow people to identify convicted sex offenders? One answer can be found by looking at this week’s other surprise political development: Tony Blair’s extraordinary appearance as co-presenter on a BBC radio World Cup phone-in show.

Both were stunts driven by the desperate desire to make some sort of emotional connection with a disaffected public. “Only connect!” wrote E. M. Forster. “Only connect the prose and the passion.” Substitute politicians for prose, and you have the cri de coeur of our lonely political class.

The first Prime Minister to appear as a non-shock radio jock, Mr Blair admitted that he had only rediscovered an interest in football in recent years, and then reeled off the sort of insights — “England do their best when up against it”, “Trinidad & Tobago did really brilliantly”, “If you don’t play good football you don’t win” — that suggested he has been cramming from the Football Phone-In Bores’ Big Book of Banal Clichés.

No doubt this bizarre spectacle was all about Mr Blair’s reborn love of the game, and had nothing to do with half the electorate watching England’s matches. The over-inflated role that football plays in our collective consciousness explains why a Prime Minister haemorrhaging support might be keen to turn the World Cup into a National Soccerist rally. It is a wonder he has not sent out Cherie and her magic crystals to combat the witch doctors reportedly helping Ecuador against England on Sunday.

It is a sad fact that nothing in society today seems to unite as many people as the football. Nothing, that is, except perhaps hatred of paedophiles. Which might explain why a Government in danger of being knocked out in the next round could consider bringing on Sarah’s Law to connect with popular concerns. Why else would John Reid, the Home Secretary, suddenly be converted to the idea? There has been no new wave of violent paedophile attacks, no new evidence that such laws make children any safer. New Labour, however, is coming under so many attacks and feeling so unsafe, it seems prepared to turn child sex offences into a political football.

Whether they involve tail-ending Sarah’s Law or Sven’s Law, these stunts reveal a government lacking any sense of leadership or purpose. New Labour’s supposed control freaks have lost it — and they are not the only ones. One chief constable attacked the Home Office for having “surrendered” policy on sex offenders to media pressure. He had a point, but it was a bit rich: didn’t the Metropolitan Police recently try to reorganise the entire drugs regime around press stories about celebrity coke-heads? We might call it Kate’s Law.

It seems unlikely that the obsessive attempt to “only connect” with the public’s emotions rather than intellect will pass with Mr Blair. Look at David Cameron and Gordon Brown this week, fresh from publicly celebrating Father’s Day, arguing about which one sat with the “real fans” at England’s match against Sweden. For politicians who appear to stand for little, swearing allegiance to “Fatherhood and Football” seems to be the new equivalent of “Motherhood and Apple Pie”.

• ONE THING that Sarah’s Law definitely will not protect us from is fear — and neither will its high-profile opponents. Indeed, the debate over this legislation appears to be a contest to see who can scaremonger most effectively.

  The Home Office and supporters of Sarah’s Law are stoking fears of an imaginary army of predatory paedophiles lurking at the school gates. For their part, opposition politicians and police chiefs complain that focusing on a few high-profile offenders could “divert attention from people who could pose a much greater risk” — by which they mean members and friends of a child’s family — and could also lead to “lynch law”.

  All sides seem to agree that we live in a nightmare world populated by lurking sex fiends, pervert relatives and lynch mobs of angry mothers, in which we can trust nobody (except, of course, the politicians and police). Some of us might think that these fearful ideas “pose a much greater risk” to our children’s prospects of growing up in a free society.

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