By Nyta Mann BBC News Online political correspondent

The government has got what it wanted: its new anti-terrorism legislation on the statute books by Christmas, albeit modified from the original ambitions of the Home Office.

Home Secretary David Blunkett can be said to have delivered once again for the prime minister, the new laws - still controversial even after ministers retreated on some of the most contentious areas - having been rammed through parliament.

But it may prove to have been at some cost to Mr Blunkett's political stock.

Bill timetable

13 Nov: Proposals published 26 Nov: Bill clears Commons despite revolt by 21 Labour MPs 29 Nov: 1st Lords defeat 6 Dec: Peers inflict seven more defeats 12 Dec: Commons reverses Lords defeats 13 Dec: Bill 'ping-pongs' between Lords and Commons until compromise agreed

Not because of the U-turns made on the bill. Dropping the incitement to religious hatred and other concessions were necessary compromises in the face of determined opposition by peers of all parties, not just Conservative.

Even Mr Blunkett's bullish public insistence, up to a late stage in the emerging Commons-Lords face-off on the bill, that he was determined it should get through intact can be seen as hard-ball negotiating tactics.

But his handling of the heavy criticism the bill has come under since it was first unveiled is seen as ill-judged.

Criticism seen as intemperate

From the start, attacks on the proposal to extend race hate laws to cover religion was swept aside by his urgent insistence that this was an utterly essential part of the bill that needed to be past into law without delay.

Both Downing Street and the Home Office were adamant this was not an issue they could climb down on.

Now they have. Not only that, but despite the supposed urgency, the government has no plans to reintroduce a separate religious hatred law now that it has been dropped from the anti-terrorism package. How come, if it really was as essential as they had said?

Between the bill's publication and its passage into law, the home secretary's handling of its many critics has also been seen by some as more intemperate and blustering than necessary.

Giving way to the combined weight of peers' opposition on the bill in the small hours of Thursday's late night in parliament, the home secretary described the Liberal Democrats as "stupid" and said they had made a "complete backside" of their amendments to the legislation.

Blood-curdling warning

Before the final debate, in the course of the last few weeks Mr Blunkett has also appeared to lump the judiciary and the House of Lords - neither of which suffer often from being accused of rampant liberalism - into some kind of "politically correct", namby pamby bunch of hand-wringing liberals standing in the way of the nation's security.

Then an attack last week on peers' intransigence was almost blood-curdling in tone as Mr Blunkett warned of the consequences of their scrutiny, declaring: "God willing, there won't be an attack on us over Christmas and new year."

"Because all those who tell me we are not [at risk], are the ones who do not have the security and intelligence information which for my sins I carry."

Earlier this week, meanwhile, he decided to open up another front on which to fight, with his remarks on immigration, the summer riots in northern towns and various completely unconnected subjects like genital mutilation and forced marriages.

A fair few Labour figures with no previous brief against Mr Blunkett whatsoever took offence at what they saw as gratuitous headline-stirring.

Gentle hand of Downing Street

On both these occasions, Downing Street insisted it stood by the home secretary while at the same time adding its own gentle, corrective view on the mini-furores unleashed by him.

None of this is to say his position as home secretary is in the slightest danger. It is not, and Tony Blair thinks highly of Mr Blunkett.

His name has also, for some time now, been one of the four or five that regularly crop up in Westminster conversations about possible successors to Mr Blair. In these idle speculation stakes, he has since the June general election overtaken Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

But in the longer game of politics, for the time being at any rate, his move further up those stakes in the past few months may have been slowed.