DAVID BLUNKETT has been given an assurance of returning to high office after he visited 50 seats in a remarkable comeback campaign.

Tony Blair gave the undertaking to his former Home Secretary at a Labour rally, going further in public than he has done to any Cabinet minister with the exception of Gordon Brown, the Chancellor. Speaking in Huddersfield, Mr Blair said: “That is one of the most special people I have ever worked with in my life and I want to see him back where he belongs as soon as possible.”

Mr Blunkett refused to speculate on the job he may be in line for but, asked by The Times whether he hopes for a senior role in the post-election reshuffle should Labour win, he seemed to put himself on a level playing field with former Cabinet colleagues in the race for plum places.

“I am not making any presumptions about that because every Cabinet minister has the same expectation and they are all out doing their bit and earning their spurs. Nobody should make a presumption of their place,” he said.

On the campaign trail with Mr Blunkett, it is as if his spectacular fall from the Cabinet never happened. No backbencher has made as many constituency visits. He has been to Redditch in Worcestershire, where he came to the aid of Jacqui Smith, formerly on his ministerial team at Education and the Home Office, who is locked in a fierce battle with the Conservatives. He lent support to Alastair Darling, the Transport Secretary, who is fighting to hold on to the expanded constituency of Edinburgh South West.

In Hornchurch, Essex, where John Cryer is facing a Tory challenge to his 1,482 majority, Mr Blunkett was heckled on immigration and crime. At a Labour-organised meeting there, people shouted “put them in a barracks” and “ASBOs don’t stop them”.

The worst thing that happened in Harrow West, a northwest London marginal held for Labour by Gareth Thomas, was the man who drove past shouting “scumbag liar”. “Harrow is very different to Hornchurch,” Mr Blunkett said when The Times spoke to him there. “That belt around Essex is exactly the area where Michael Howard has been playing to the worst anxieties of people.”

But was there a Plan B? What would happen if he did not get back in the Cabinet? “I have learnt a lot in the past four months, including about survival if you have your income halved,” is all he will say. It sounded as though there was no Plan B.

The role that seems the most likely, taking into account Mr Blunkett’s background in local government, is running a new department created from the current Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, perhaps with a mission to sort out council tax.

He refused to speak about the two-year-old son he has with Kimberly Quinn. Access to the boy is subject to court proceedings and would have to be settled before a political return. “It is entirely private now and there is absolutely nothing that will be public. We have got over the public element of it,” he said.

An aide said that the case was close to being resolved and added: “The court case over custody is still ongoing but is due to come to an end in the next few weeks.”

Mr Blunkett’s cheerfulness was infectious on a walkabout in Harrow West. A pensioner serving in the Cancer Research shop wanted him back in the Cabinet, saying: “It was sad his personal life had to come into it.”

Magfur Ahmed, 65, added: “He should be given another chance because that was a silly personal thing that can happen to anybody in their life.”

Only John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, can claim to have easily exceeded Mr Blunkett’s campaigning efforts, but he had his own battle bus to take him to 75 constituencies.

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