In 1997, Michael Howard, then Conservative Home Secretary, and Tony Blair, Labour leader and Prime Minister in waiting, were falling over themselves to be pictured with Ray Mallon.

Mr Mallon, at that time, was the head of the town's CID and was making national headlines by slashing crime with his zero-tolerance policing methods.

He was the man to be seen with, and Middlesbrough was the place to be seen.

Mr Blair travelled to Teesside with wife, Cherie, and, perhaps bizarrely, TV's Prime Suspect star Helen Mirren, days before the country went to the polls.

Jack Straw, then Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, was pictured a week earlier meeting Mr Mallon, while the nearest Mr Howard got was a mobile telephone conversation from a few streets away.

Today, Mr Howard is making a return to the town to launch his party's offensive on crime and anti-social behaviour.

Not only will he find Mr Mallon much easier to share a conversation with, he will also discover a much more prosperous place than the one Margaret Thatcher encountered almost two decades ago during her infamous walk in the wilderness.

It was said her visit in 1986 persuaded the Iron Lady that something needed to be done about Britain's decaying inner-cities, but she also witnessed spiralling crime and massive unemployment rates.

Today, people have a much more positive outlook, and much of that new-found optimism can be attributed to the crimefighting and environmental improvement work Mr Mallon has been implementing since he was elected in 2002.

Mr Mallon was flavour of the month seven years ago ahead of that General Election, and now, finally, appears to be back in fashion with those on high.

His popularity has come full circle, as in between times - during his suspension from the police during the anti-corruption inquiry Operation Lancet - he was the man very few wanted to be seen with.

As Cleveland Police lurched from embarrassment to crisis, there was not a murmur from those who had basked in his reflected glory only a few years earlier.

Now he is back to doing what he does best - thinking big and talking big - and people are listening again.

Mr Mallon has recruited the country's biggest private policing force and launched a Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership that has won the highest "outstanding" rating from Government inspectors.

The results include house burglaries at an all-time low, overall crime down, street begging almost eradicated, and robberies cut by about 40 per cent.

Mr Mallon said last year: "I am frankly appalled at the lack of respect some people show for their town, environment, and fellow citizens."

Today, Mr Howard will tell the media: "As a society, we are in danger of being overrun by values which eat away at people's respect for themselves, each other, their homes and their neighbourhood.

"Most damaging of all has been the dramatic decline in personal responsibility. Many people now believe that they are no longer wholly responsible for their actions.

"It is someone else's, or something else's fault - the environment, society, the Government . . ."

People in high places are listening again.