SHE is the great survivor of Labour politics: one of the handful of ministers who have served in the Cabinet throughout the Blair years, and the only one left who was in the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan in the 1970s.

Yet, when the Prime Minister told her on Friday, May 5, that she was to become Foreign Secretary her response was four-lettered, “unprintable in your newspaper”. Margaret Beckett told The Times in her first wide- ranging interview since being given the post.

“F***,” she observed to an amused Mr Blair. She went into No 10 on the morning after the local elections, as Mr Blair carried out a reshuffle, forced on him by his decision to sack Charles Clarke. Mrs Beckett knew that she was staying in government but did not know what he had in mind for her.

She told him that she was happy to remain where she was at the sprawling Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, where she was enjoying her role as, among other things, a negotiator on agriculture and climate change.

“He told me he wanted me to go on working on climate change issues but to do it from the Foreign Office. I was stunned.” Her reaction: “One word, and four lettered.” Did it begin with F or S? “F,” she later admitted.

It seems likely that Mrs Beckett was one of the beneficiaries of Mr Clarke’s demise. It is thought that he would have become Foreign Secretary in a year had he stayed on and that Jack Straw would have remained at the Foreign Office until then. When Mr Blair decided to expand his changes, he turned to the woman he regards as one of the safest pairs of hands in his team. How she got it was of no concern to Mrs Beckett: “It is not the kind of offer you can turn down.”

Once seen as a left-wing firebrand, Mrs Beckett morphed into a faithful Blairite foot soldier and now occupies one of the top four offices of state.

Looking back, it is clear that her Defra portfolio was good preparation for a role that involves her heavily in European negotiations and, on the wider stage, on issues such as Iran. A perceptive adviser told her last Christmas after trade, sugar and climate change talks had taken her on a successful round trip to Brussels, Montreal and Hong Kong: “If you are not careful you will negotiate your way into the Foreign Office. She regards the explanation for her ministerial longevity as reasonably straightforward.

“I always think back to [the long-serving Conservative Cabinet minister] Tony Newton. Every time there was a reshuffle everyone used to say, ‘Oh, Tony is bound to go’. And of course he didn’t. When people asked me why, I used to say, ‘He is good at what he does’.”

So without being in any way immodest, Mrs Beckett puts her staying power down to quiet competence. Her remark is a reflection of the unstuffiness of a politician who admits that she used the F-word to the Prime Minister and allows herself to be photographed during the interview sipping wine towards the end of a busy Foreign Office day. Nor is she in any way ashamed to admit that this summer, as in most years past, the Foreign Secretary and her husband, Leo, will take their caravan off to the Continent for their holidays.

Mrs Beckett, 63, admitted that she had no time to become daunted by the scale of the task facing her. “I was thrown into the deep end,” she said. Within days she was at the United Nations discussing with the four other permanent members of the Security Council and Germany a package of incentives for Iran to curb its nuclear programme in 36 hours of back-to-back meetings.

She confessed to “flying by the seat of my pants”, but doing it “quite gracefully”. She replied “absolutely” when asked whether she had struck up a good relationship with Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State. “Not only do I find her a very nice person, and very easy to talk to, but she and the US Government have made some very brave decisions on the issue of Iran, which are potentially of great benefit to the US and the international community.”

She has a carefully prepared stance on military action against Iran, which her predecessor said was inconceivable, using slightly harder language than Mr Blair. “I have deliberately chosen not to use Jack’s form of words or Tony’s form of words. What I say is that there is no intention of taking military action, which is the formula I intend to stick to. However, we do all mean the same thing.”

She has just attended her first European Council summit. She denies that she suffered a humiliating reverse on the issue of opening up council meetings. She clearly has no enthusiasm for reviving the moribund European constitution, and said that there was no consensus on the way forward.

Mrs Beckett has come a long way since she denounced Neil Kinnock at a Tribune rally in 1981 for refusing to support her friend Tony Benn as deputy Labour leader. She dropped her opposition to Europe early on and moved from unilateralism to multilateral disarmament along with much of her party. Updating Trident, which Gordon Brown backed last week, is unlikely to be a problem for her.

She has become one of the trusted agents of Blairism, while unusually never losing her links and friendships on the Left. How has she managed that? “Leo always says that any fool can make enemies. We have always tried to keep our friendships. We do not drop our friends and we hope they do not drop us.”She admitted that she did not go in for much self-promotion.

In August Mrs Beckett will travel with Leo to the caravan sites of Europe. This time they will have company. Mrs Beckett, as Foreign Secretary, would be required to have protection. The Special Branch will not be far behind, although whether they will stay in a caravan no one will say.

WOMAN OF MANY TALENTS

1974 became MP

1974-75 PPS to Minister for Overseas Development

1975-76 Assistant Government Whip

1976-79 Education Minister

1984-89 health and social security spokeswoman

1989-92 Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury,

1992-94 Shadow Leader of the Commons

1992-94 Deputy leader of the Labour Party May-July 1994 acting leader of the Labour Party

1994-95 Health spokeswoman

1995-97 Shadow Trade and Industry Secretary

1997-98 Secretary of State for Trade and Industry

1998-2001 Leader of the House of Commons

2001-06 Environment Secretary

2006 Foreign Secretary

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