BBC political editor Andrew Marr explained the issues on the 10 O'clock News.

How significant is this row?

I think this is a really serious confrontation which affects everybody who's a victim of crime and anyone who's committed a crime.

On the one side, we have Home Secretary David Blunkett, who says he's speaking for the people, he's speaking for democracy.

All those people who are angry about rising crime on the streets and want to see longer sentences, and that should be reflected through Parliament.

And on the other side, the judicial system which says it's speaking for something even more important than democracy: "We are speaking for justice."

Who will win this battle?

In the olden days, you would say it's absolutely clear who's going to win.

We live in a system of parliamentary absolutism.

If David Blunkett keeps his nerve he can crush whatever the judges say.

I'm not absolutely sure that's any longer the case.

The judges are now buttressed by all these international treaties - such as the European Convention of Human Rights - and they are in a new position.

The confusion is added to because the government has just torn up lots of aspects of the top of the legal system.

Trying to get rid of the Lord Chancellor, a supreme court and all of that.

Should we examine this in a broader context?

We should be looking at it in the context of real constitutional confusion.

When it comes to the supreme court, that's meant, the government says, to get the politicians out of the judiciary.

But the appointments commission is intended to ensure that many fewer judges look like Lord Woolf.

The government wants there to be more black and Asian judges, more female judges, more judges in connection with the communities who are angry about crime.

We have got a larger question here as well - all the fall-out and confusion from what everyone now regards as a botched reshuffle.

We had a most extraordinary scene in the Commons earlier, when the Speaker got up and said: "This is such a bog-up, such a confusion, that I've asked the prime minister to come and explain to us exactly what's been going on."

And Tony Blair's going to do that on Wednesday.

We used to talk about reshuffles as being beautifully and meticulously choreographed.

Frankly, this is Swan Lake danced by elephants.