Yesterday I penned a
semi-light-hearted post about the candidates I would not be supporting in Labour's deputy leadership election - Alan Johnson because he is the clear choice of
Rupert Murdoch, and Hazel Blears because as the
leading Tory bloggers have correctly identified, she really would be the Conservative Party's dream come true.
Actually, I have some slightly more serious reasons for my choice, so in a bid to please all those who want to see more
in-depth political analysis on this blog, I thought that today I would go into a bit more detail about who will or won't be getting my backing, and why.
The starting point, for me, is to ask the question what a deputy leader is for. To my mind, it's not necessarily to provide a Deputy Prime Minister. Whether or not Gordon Brown or whoever succeeds Tony Blair decides to have one of those is largely a matter for them, and in any case the deputy leader of the party might not necessarily be the best candidate.
I think the role of the deputy leader is to complement (though not necessarily compliment!) the leader - by providing a counterpoint in style and in some cases substance, and aiming to reach the parts of the party and country that the leader doesn't necessarily reach. This is what John Prescott managed to do very successfully until he started behaving like a man who had allowed power to go to his
underpants head.
So who best provides that balance? Well, Hazel Blears would certainly provide a counterpoint to Gordon Brown in some respects, in that she is English, female, Blairite, and a relatively fresh face. But in the current climate, the ideological balance needs to be the other way - towards the large swathes of traditional Labour supporters who have felt alienated and disenfranchised by the New Labour project, not to those who want to be even more New Labour than Blair.
What about Hilary Benn, who is claimed by his supporters to be more on the centre-left of the party? I think his strengths lie in being a first-class departmental minister rather than a political force in his own right. Douglas Hurd is perhaps the closest analogy I can think of, and like Hurd, I think he would make an excellent Foreign Secretary.
Alan Johnson is a more difficult one. I think he is a very likeable chap who could well prove a big hit with the voters, but the main reason I wouldn't support him is that I think he is a natural leader rather than a natural deputy. The Blair-Brown relationship would be reinvented by the press as Brown-Johnson, with the No 2 waiting impatiently for the boss's career to implode so he could take over. That is the last thing the Labour Party needs right now.
Finally, there is Harriet Harman. I think she
does reach some of the parts Gordon doesn't reach, in terms of women voters and southern England, and to that extent would be an asset for the party. What turns me against her though is her very mediocre record as a minister, and the fact that she has nothing very new to say about the role of the deputy leader beyond the fact that it shouldn't have a penis.
Which leaves me with a shortlist of two in Peter Hain and Jon Cruddas. Both of these candidates have, in their different ways, advocated a fresh direction for the party and the Government, and I would be happy to see either of them win.
I like a lot of what Hain has had to say recently about the need to tackle the growing wealth divide in this country, and although I happen to think he has been rather opportunistic in the way he has said it, and that he should have resigned over Iraq, I won't hold that against him, as it's the future of the party that matters now, not the past.
Cruddas has been a breath of fresh air in the contest and represents perhaps the best hope of reconnecting the party with its grassroots. I think as the contest goes on he needs to say slightly less about party organisation though and more about the policy perspective that he would bring to bear.
I don't, at this stage, see the point in declaring between the two of them, although I will do this nearer the time. Suffice to say I think both of them would perform the Prescott role of providing a balance to Brown and keeping Labour's big tent together - hopefully in a slightly classier way.
Peter Kilfoyle has become the first MP to publicly back a John Denham leadership bid following my post on the matter last week, correctly identifying the point that any serious challenge to Gordon Brown needs to come from the "sensible left" of the party and not the uber Blairite right as Milburn, Clarke, Field and Co are clearly advocating.
