The Deputy Leadership: How the bloggers are lining up

Following on from yesterday's post about Hilary Benn, today's Times reports that Hazel Blears is to declare after all and she has already won the backing of Labour blogger Luke Akehurst.

I have still not yet decided where my own support is going - it's between Jon Cruddas, Peter Hain, and Harriet Harman - but I thought it would be good to have a recap on how the most prominent Labour and left-of-centre bloggers are currently lining up in the race to replace John Prescott.

Jon Cruddas remains overwhelmingly the "bloggers' choice," gaining the backing of such diverse figures as Bob Piper and Kerron Cross, but Hilary Benn also seems to have significant support, once again bearing out my anecdotal hunch that these two remain well ahead of the field in terms of grassroots support.

If there are any other lefty bloggers who have come out in support of particular candidates - or if I have got anyone on this list wrong - please let me know in the comments or via email.

Hilary Benn

Paul Burgin
Mike Ion

Hazel Blears

Luke Akehurst

Jon Cruddas

Bob Piper
Kerron Cross
Will Parbury
Antonia Bance
The Daily
Newer Labour

Peter Hain

Tygerland

Alan Johnson

Stuart Bruce


I couldn't find any blogger who has come out in favour of Harriet Harman. When I first posted this I had thought Recess Monkey was planning to back her but I have since been corrected on this point (see comments.)

Sitting on the fence, but leaning towards either Benn, Blears or Johnson, is British Spin, while Tom Watson appears to be flirting with either Johnson or Cruddas.

Has Hilary Peaked Too Soon?

When Hilary Benn first entered the race for Labour's deputy leadership, there was near-universal agreement among the pundits that he had immediately become the man to beat, such is the breadth of his appeal in the party. Although essentially a man of the "soft left" by background, the International Development Secretary was also expected to garner support from Blairites impressed by his modernising credentials as well as old-style lefties with a sentimental attachment to the Benn name.

His popularity among ordinary party members seemed to be borne out by (admittedly totally unscientific) online polls such as the one carried out on this blog and another currently running on the Political Penguin blog, both of which show Benn and Jon Cruddas as the clear frontrunners.

But if those polls are in any way representative, there would appear to be a clear discontinuity between the views of Labour MPs and the views of the party's grassroots members on the deputy leadership issue. According to this story in yesterday's Times, it is Alan Johnson who is making the running in the PLP, with Benn struggling even to get his name on the ballot paper.

I've no reason to doubt the truth of this, but what it highlights are the complexities of trying to predict an election involving an electoral college made up of three very distinct parts, particularly where one of those constituent parts (the MPs) has the ability to kill a challenge.

The general consensus about Benn seems to be that if he does get on the ballot paper, he will do well, and could still win. But if he doesn't, and Peter Hain does, the Northern Ireland Secretary could well end up hoovering up the soft-left votes that might otherwise have gone to Benn.

Others have made the point that if the May elections go spectacularly badly for Labour, it will further strengthen the hand of Cruddas, the anti-establishment candidate who has alreayd won significant union and grassroots backing.

This also has an impact on the ongoing speculation about the shape of Gordon's Cabinet. Benn says he's not interested in being "Deputy Prime Minister" but if he wins it would be hard for Brown to deny him the Foreign Office. Both Hain and Johnson though seem more keen on the DPM title.

To complicate matters even further, there are rumours that Caroline Flint is also preparing to run. To which I can only say, bring it on, Caroline!

Pot. Kettle. Black

It's not often I defend David Cameron's Tories, but this comment from Noel Gallagher, songwriter with Beatles Tribute Band Brits Lifetime Achievement Winners Oasis, is up there with Mr Tony himself in the hypocrisy stakes.

"They wait to see what Tony Blair says...and then they move in behind and switch it and change a little bit. It's like a song writer who's eternally ripping off someone else's song and just changing the odd line a little."

The Brits Ain't What They Used To Be

I have to admit to being slightly disappointed by the outcome of this year's Brit Awards, not just because sparkling Lily Allen (pictured) lost out to dreary Amy Whinehouse for Best British Female, but also because that the ceremony failed to live up to its past reputation for cock-ups and general bad behaviour.

Everything seemed terribly polite and well behaved compared to, say, John Prescott having a bucket of water emptied over his head by Chumbawamba*, Jarvis Cocker invading the stage during Michael Jackson's Earth Song, the KLF dumping a dead sheep outside the ceremony (their original plan having been to slice it open on stage), and Lisa Stansfield's rant against the first Gulf War in 1991.

Perhaps my favourite memory, though, was Sporty Spice Melanie Chisholm telling the loathsome Liam Gallagher to "come and have a go if you think you're hard enough" from the podium after he criticised the Spice Girls in 1997.

Eat your heart our, Arctic Monkeys and Co. They don't make pop stars like that any more.

*Token Political Reference for those who get annoyed by my occasional descents into "trash blogging."
**Hat Tip: Giles C

Happy Valentine's...

Chairman of the Lobby Adam Boulton has today struck a blow for serious political journalism by nominating his Top 10 Most Fanciable MPs which for the sake of completeness includes some male Parliamentarians even though Adam himself is robustly heterosexual. It is disappointing that neither Jonathan Calder, Guido Fawkes, or Iain Dale have risen to the challenge to produce their own lists, but here for the record is mine!

1 Yvette Cooper
2 Caroline Flint
3 Julia Goldsworthy
4 Celia Barlow
5 Claire Ward
6 Helen Southworth
7 Justine Greening
8 Alison Seabeck
9 Lynne Featherstone
10 Joan Ryan

Nos 1 & 2 may well figure among my tips to be in Gordon's first Cabinet - but on the grounds of ability, rather than looks, I hasten to add.

For a further Valentine's Day treat, click HERE for "Gweirdo's" take on recent events in the Blogosphere.

Thinking the Unthinkable

Frank Field used to be one of my favourite MPs, a Christian socialist not afraid to speak his mind. But after his contribution to the Labour leadership debate today I am reminded of Clem Attlee's memorable retort to Harold Laski: "A period of silence from you would now be welcome."

Writing in today's Guardian, Field argues that it is time for Labour to skip a generation to David Miliband, arguing that Gordon Brown's position as leader-in-waiting arises merely from a misguided sense of indebtedness to him for not splitting the party last time round rather than any assessment of his ability.

As that astute observer David Herdson has pointed out on Political Betting, Field's article comes over more as a justification for not electing Brown than an argument for electing the Boy David.

Coming in the wake of last Thursday's astonishing gaffe on Question Time last Thursday - which will be used mercilessly against Gordon by the Tories - it also displays the impeccable timing of the consummate political operator - not.

Field urges us to draw from the "lessons" of history, in which natural heirs apparent who take over have ended up making a botch of things (Chamberlain, Eden) while unexpected dark horses who overtook the favourite have gone on to electoral success (Baldwin, Major.)

I would simply urge Field to look at three more recent and pertitent examples of where a decision to pass over the natural successor has badly backfired on the party concerned: Foot over Healey in 1980, Hague over Clarke in 1997, IDS over Portillo and Clarke in 2001.

The sad truth about Frank Field is that he is an embittered man who blames Brown for the failure of his welfare reform green paper in 1998 when he was challenged to "think the unthinkable," and for his subsequent sacking from the Government.

I hate to speak ill of a fellow Christian, but this article ought to ensure that the process of estrangement from the Labour Party, which has been going on ever since that abrupt dismissal, is now complete.

Blog Wars and Think Tanks

I have said little on the so-called Blog Wars between Tim and Guido since my original post on the matter last month in which I predicted, correctly as it has turned out, that the debate would eventually polarise on political lines. Iain Dale has today called for an end to it, but that seems a forlorn hope at present.

As I said at the outset, I'm sitting on the fence on this one, and none of what follows should be construed as taking sides, but I have thought for some time that there is one aspect of this "war" that is deeply misguided, and about which I ought to speak out. This is the apparent attempt to smear Gordon Brown over his links with the Smith Institute, and the resulting revenge attacks on certain Tory bloggers over their links with the Policy Exchange.

The Smith Institute was set up in memory of the late John Smith. Believe it or not, Gordon Brown was very close to John Smith as a politician and still holds very similar ideas to him on a range of issues. Is it therefore a very great surprise that Brown and the Smith Institute have a close relationship? No, any more than it is a surprise that a would-be Conservative MP such as Iain Dale or a would-be Tory Mayor of London such as Nick Boles should be a trustees of a right-wing think tank, the Policy Exchange.

My point is that political think-tanks are a part of the political process, and have been at least since the days of Harold Wilson and Ted Heath. Some of these think-tanks are close to individual politicians. As I said about David Cameron's schoolboy toking earlier today, big fucking deal.

Feb 14 update: That's enough blog wars - Ed. Comments on this thread will remain open, but the main debate is continuing elsewhere and I think I've said what I have to say on the matter for the time being.

I do have some sympathy with Tim Ireland's view that the blogosphere is a community in which people owe eachother some sort of obligation of good behaviour - as a socialist I would make the same argument about society generally - but I also accept that individual bloggers like Guido have a perfect right to run their blogs in the way they choose, and that there is no sense trying to enforce a "code of etiquette" without more widespread consent for that. End of communication.

The Big Idea

Transport secretary Douglas Alexander - and, presumably, Gordon Brown - wants to have a debate about using road charging to reduce congestion by 25pc despite a 1m-signature petition against the idea.

Well, it may or may not surprise Mr Alexander to learn that someone has already thought of a Big Idea for reducing the number of motorists off the road. It's called public transport.

It strikes me that there is potential for some very interesting political cross-dressing on this one if David Cameron wants to defend the cost of motoring as free at the point of delivery while at the same time underlining his environmental credentials by ploughing the proceeds of green taxes into trains and buses.

Could the Tories, the party of Dr Beeching and rail privatisation, really become the party of public transport? Stranger things have happened.

Blair's nemesis

Lords reform - and how Tony Blair's failure to address it seriously in his first term has now come back and bitten him on the bum - is the subject of my latest podcast which can be heard
HERE or alternatively read HERE.

"There is surely a bitter irony in the fact that had Mr Blair done the sensible, democratic thing and brought in a fully-elected Second Chamber back in 1997, the whole cash-for-peerages affair would never have happened, but in his lack of radicalism and loss of nerve lay his nemesis. It is as good a summary of the Blair years as any."

Is that all Dave? Why Cameron should have come clean

So the big secret's out at last. David Cameron enjoyed a few spliffs while a schoolboy at Eton, and went on to enjoy a few more while a student at Oxford. Well big fucking deal.

The response of the media and political opponents alike has been predictably underwhelming, although admittedly it's hard for Home Secretary John Reid to make too much of an issue of it

For me, it all begs the question why Cameron didn't come clean about this much earlier, instead of allowing the view to take root that he must be trying to cover up a much more serious drug problem. At one point, practically the entire journalistic profession thought Cameron's family trust fund had disappeared up his nose.

Really, it's a bit like a man suspected of marital infedility refusing to answer questions about his sex life when all he has actually done is pull himself off in the shower.

Giles Radice knew the score

Giles Radice was the kindest and most courteous of the North-East MPs I regularly dealt with in my old job as Political Editor of the Newcastle Journal. After I left the Lobby he stayed in touch for a while and sent me a copy of his Diaries which were published towards the end of 2004. Thumbing through them earlier this evening, I came across this remarkable paragraph, written on General Election Day 2001.

"Lisanne and I work in Newark for Fiona Jones. It is an uphill task, because despite being a sitting Labour MP, Fiona is the victim of a horrendous whispering campaign. Sad to say, she has been a lame duck MP, ever since she was wrongly convicted of "fiddling" her election expenses. Although she was immediately and totally exonerated on appeal, the mud stuck and the Tories have been conducting a vicious doorstep attack on her personal character. We meet hostility to her as we knock up, including schoolboys who say she is "corrupt." Poor Fiona!"

This needs little further comment from me, as it already says so much: about Giles Radice and his dedication to the Labour Party; about the awfulness of Fiona Jones' plight; but also about the Labour Party's desertion of her, that she was left to try to get the vote out on election day with the help, not of the party's "stars," but of only a veteran backbencher on his way, that very day, into retirement.

Poor Fiona, indeed....

Has Miliband blown it?

As regular readers of this blog will know I have long tipped Environment Secretary David Miliband for great things under Gordon Brown, including possibly a 50-50 shot at the Chancellorship. But I can't imagine that the PM-in-waiting will have been too chuffed by the Boy Wonder's remarks on BBC Question Time last night.

"I predict that when I come back on this programme in six months or a year’s time, people will be saying ‘wouldn’t it be great to have that Blair back because we can’t stand that Gordon Brown’."

Miliband tried to explain it away by saying he was merely making the point that people always complain about the sitting Prime Minister, but the Brownites will view the comment as, at best, inept and, at worst, indicative of the mindset in the "Blair Bunker."

I don't think Gordon will forget this, and it may well take him a fairly long time to forgive. I may have to revise my predictions as to the make up of Brown's future Cabinet.

A real vote-winner, Charlie

Writing in today's Daily Telegraph, Toby Helm reports that Charlie "No Trousers" Clarke is advocating the abandonment of Labour's historic commitment to providing free education and health care and the introduction of "some level of charging" for public services.

Fair enough, you might think. Such issues have to be debated after all, and Clarke is a backbencher with complete freedom to speak out. Except that in the very next sentence, Helm goes on to write that Clarke's comments "will be seen as a pitch for the Labour leadership against Gordon Brown."

I've always rather rated Toby Helm, but what planet was he on when he wrote this? Can anyone, seriously, think of anything less likely to attract votes in a Labour leadership election than arguing that the National Health Service should no longer be free at the point of delivery?

Answers on a postcard, please....