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Funny
Local Government
Chronicle - 5 March 2007
There’s nowt so funny as folk, as we say in Yorkshire. Some MPs want to be deputy leader to Gordon Brown and, perhaps but not certainly, Deputy Prime Minister. Here is Curry’s unauthorised and entirely biased guide to the hopefuls.
Step forward Alan Johnson. Charmer, bit of a wide boy with a touch of the cheekie chappy, snappy (by Parliamentary standards) dresser. Orphan, raised by sister, father of two by age 20, rose from postman to head of union and managed to sound both sane and charming – a rare feat for a union boss. Left school at age 15 without a piece of paper to his name and is now Secretary of State for Education. Non-partisan, well liked across the House, wears his working-class authenticity with chip-free ease. The French would say he was “well in his skin.”
About as different as they come from Hilary Benn. Benn is part of that lineage. Son of Wedgie (wrong but beguiling) and pro-comprehensive campaigner Caroline, and fourth generation MP he looks, sounds and gesticulates as if doing a parody of his father, with a Tiggerish enthusiasm and inability to sit still. Hilary has become the very model of the modern New Labour politician (after flirting with Bennism on Ealing council.) As Secretary of State for Overseas Development he has probably the most consensual job in politics and loads of extra cash from Gordon Brown. Has never had to show he can give and take punishment. Well liked across the floor and appealing to the party members who may at last be able to cast a sane vote for a Benn.
Peter Hain is not a consensual politician. From his perma-tan appearance to his current naked play for the approval of the Left by attacking George Bush (whose war he had voted for) and City bonuses Hain attracts strong emotion. His politics are built on conflict: the son of South African anti-apartheid activists he made his name as a militant campaigner against Springbok tours, campaigned against the white-run governments in Rhodesia and South Africa and founded the Anti-Nazi League. Hain was President of the Young Liberals before shifting to Labour. Now Secretary of State for both Wales and Northern Ireland he fits none of the three main Labour stereotypes: old-style conservative trade unionist; polytechnic left; or New Labour empiricist.
If Hain casts glowering cloud shadows over Blair’s long farewell Hazel Blears is Tony’s little ray of sunshine. The P.M.bathes in the warmth of the unalloyed beam of devotion coming from the five feet nothing dynamo of the Labour Party chairman. A council solicitor, NALGO official and councillor in Salford where she was born Hazel’s twin claims to fame are appearing an as extra in the film of gritty northern life A Taste of Honey and owning a selection of motor bikes. A loyalist to her finger tips she has provided the Tories with much innocent amusement by picketing against hospital “cuts” in her Salford constituency. Her main ministerial claim to fame was to launch the five-a-day fruit and vegetable campaign as health minister. She has stayed close to Labour roots in and out of Westminster. Exuberant and undoubtedly feisty the combination of Brown and Blears would give Private Eye copy for years on end.
With the best will in the world Harriet Harman can hardly be described as exuberant- not unless she has a charisma revealed only to her friends. Well connected (niece of the Countess of Longford, educated at St Paul’s Girls’ School and wife of Labour Party Treasurer and union leader jack Dromey) and earning party flak by sending her two sons to a grant maintained and grammar school respectively she has bumped along just below the top rank of government without ever establishing a real political identity. Perhaps she is just too well connected to the party hierarchy to develop her own space. Reputedly a Brownite she claims that her presence on the party ticket would significantly widen its appeal.
Back-bencher Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham, says he wants to be deputy leader of the Labour Party only without a ministerial post. Disaffected from Blair and distrustful of Brown he wants renewal by drinking at the pure well of old Labour. He’s got this bit of the field to himself!
© Local Government Chronicle
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