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Jon Cruddas: That Famously Refused Post Revealled
It seems that Mr Cruddas was lined up to be the Minister for the South East - as well as getting a Labour Party role as one of four Vice Chairs. In the heat of the moment he is said to have considered the offer "too nebulous".
As we all know from reading the comments if not the headline over at my good friend Dale's place this area was subsequently bundled with London as the patch for Tess of the Jowell-Mills'.
I think it could be unbundled. And I think that Jon should take the role on. Be as good a reason as any to visit his constituency home more often.
CORRECTION: The South East post has already been unbundled but went to Jonathan Shaw MP (thanks Andrea). I can't help thinking that Jon Cruddas has messed up big time by not accepting either a first Ministerial job or a Party role. Did he really think he was going to be Home Secretary? I'm off to enlighten Mr Dale.
6 comments:
"this area was subsequently bundled with London as the patch for Tess of the Jowell-Mills'."
In the new list up on Downing Street website, it's not a Tessa's responsability.
The minister for South East is Jonathan Shaw.
And among Labour's new Vice-Chairs there's Stephan Ladyman responsible for "South East"
Thanks Andrea. The word was that Tess was doing London and SE and several Tory bloggers corrected Mr Dale when he said there was a vacancy. There are six Vice Chairs. And I see that John Mann is on Drugs.
"The word was that Tess was doing London and SE and several Tory bloggers corrected Mr Dale when he said there was a vacancy"
IIRC on Thursday Jowell was firstly reported as in charge of "London and South East". Then on Thursday evening/late afternoon when the full list of regional minister was released she was just in charge of London and no-one had South East. Then on Friday when the full junior ministers positions were published, Jonathan Shaw was in charge of South East.
A bit confusing, isn't it?!
I am not part of the Jon's camp and don't see him as a conviction politician, but his refusal of such minor posts is a clever ploy on his part. He moves into the role of being the most feasible soft left critic in the PLP and the leading spokesman amongst MPs for the fairly loyal forms of criticism coming from Compass. As long as he does not act as an extremist, he can grow in standing. It will all go down well on his political CV and he can be bought off at a higher price later.
I'm not part of Jon's camp either. If he baulked at taking a position conjured up by GB I applaud him, as I have already done here:
http://lukeakehurst.blogspot.com/2007/06/reshuffle-bits-pieces.html
and mocked GB here:
http://petergkenyon.typepad.com/peterkenyon/2007/07/brown-to-curb-p.html
I look forward to GB putting his proposals for chair, vice-chairs and manifesto groups to Annual Conference 2007 and them lying on the table like any Rule Change from a CLP or affiliate for 12 months for proper consideration. That's the least we can expect from a leader keen to engage all the talents. Isn't it?
Cruddas has been very clever.I agree with Harry Barnes.
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