October 27th, 2006

With Hilary Benn now sniffing around the Labour deputy leadership, the field is in danger of looking crowded. Yet it is striking that, unlike the all-too-familiar ‘’seven dwarfs'’ joke which crops up in the US Democratic primaries every four years, this is a good field: all six Labour candidates so far, declared and undeclared, have something to offer. Not so much the seven dwarfs as the more-or-less sensible six.I realise this will provoke some readers into denouncing them as six mediocre New Labour time-servers, party hacks and the rest of the usual lazy thinking. Look twice and you may notice:

That Peter Hain, for example, had a police file in a nasty country at the age of 15, below even the age when Alan Johnson left school;

That Harriet Harman was a brave legal officer of what is now called Liberty and is still politically brave, reckless if you prefer;

That Jon Cruddas, former No 10 trade union fixer and stalwart leftwing campaigner against both Blairite centrism and its BNP beneficiaries in poor constituents, is a very serious and impressive backbencher;

That Jack Straw, ex-NUS president, is a wily politician who fights his political corner shrewdly (which often means quietly) and gets re-elected in Blackburn despite you-know-what;

That Hilary Benn, well, we’ll come back to Mr Benn, but note in passing that he is that rare senior politician, a man with few enemies.

By the standards of modern politics in the west, where money and TV have corroded the desire to run for high office among many sensible people, that’s not a bad set of applicants for a No 2 job with little or no prospect of going higher. If you’re willing to take my word for it (cue cries of “never!”) these are smart and decent people.

Two sons of the working class (Johnson and Cruddas), three if you count Straw who won a scholarship from a council house; one woman (Hattie); one foreign-born (Hain); and two political dynasts, Benn and Hattie again. Four (Johnson, Cruddas, Hain and Benn) have proper trade union form which matters in a party keen to reconnect with itself - and stay in government.

I should add, in fairness, that John McDonnell, the Campaign group’s candidate for leader if he can stump up the 44 MPs’ votes to get him on the ballot, will also surprise and probably impress you if you ever get the chance to see him on TV. He’s not going to win, but he will offer a coherent alternative (as these things go) to Brown-Blairism and - my hunch - will get the 44 names if no one else steps forward to challenge Gordon Brown. Despite all the huffing and puffing I don’t think they will.

So what about Hilary, who was elected MP for Leeds central on the famous byelection slogan ‘’a Benn, but not a Bennite'’. Quite right too. I don’t wish to be horrid about Tony Benn, his now-elderly father, who was a fascinating campaigner on several good causes in his prime. But nor do I wish to be sentimental about him, as many Labour people do.

Though he was in office from the first day of the Wilson-Callaghan era (1964-70) to the last (1974-79), Tony Benn has come to represent for some the comfort zone of opposition politics: you feel good, but you don’t do much for your constituents out of power. In power Tony was keener on Concorde (a constituency factor) and on nuclear power than it suits some people to remember.

Out of power he behaved as if he’d never been a minister. As such he was part of the great left push from 1979-83 when he nearly destroyed Labour as a major political force, disastrously and disloyally running against Michael Foot’s deputy, Denis Healey, for deputy leader in 1981 and losing by a few votes thanks to leftwing resistance from people like Neil Kinnock, Joan Lestor and Jeff Rooker. Kinnock had 30 pieces of silver thrown at him - 10p coins actually - at the party conference that year. But Blair has led Labour in office for nearly a decade thanks to Kinnock.

The Wedgwood Benns have not been in elective Westminster politics on the progressive Lib-Lab wing for more than a century without being able to adapt to changing circumstances and events. So Hilary, who comes from a close family, must have taken quiet, sensible stock of his dad’s career during his years as a trade union officer and Ealing councillor.

As such he has been a discreet MP and minister, no shooting his mouth off or getting his name into the newspapers. No plotting against the colleagues or (so far as I am aware) trawling the tea rooms. Instead he won cabinet office at International Development, the third generation of Benns in cabinet - that’s where granddad got the Stansgate viscountcy that Tony fought so hard to disown - and worked hard on causes that matter.

Who will win? I don’t know. That’s what will make it fun as well as decent. Alan Johnson must surely have harmed himself with that backtrack over faith schools today. He’s too inexperienced in high office to afford many gaffes and the unions too have black marks against him. ‘’Don’t write off Harriet,'’ some MPs keep telling me. So I won’t: a southern woman is an obvious foil to the very Scots and very male Brown, though I find it hard to believe she’s the answer.

Hain and Benn are perfectly credible as No 2s. Hain has been beavering away which may - or may not - tip the balance. Which would Brown feel more comfy with? Straw, perhaps, because he would loyal and not be a threat? As for Jon Cruddas, the only one who wants to be deputy leader, but not deputy PM, that would be a fascinating outcome too.

Mr Cruddas is a solid citizen, if he will not mind me damaging his chances by saying so. But the hacks usually get these things wrong. Why? Because we don’t run for office ourselves and never spot the flaws and strengths that are second nature to those who do.

By Michael White, writing in Comment is FreeÂ