Labour's new leadership team, and a new recruit!

Well, my candidate for Deputy Leader (Peter Hain), see below, didn't make it - he came fifth! (Although the candidates were all fairly close together in the first round). However, I think the combination of Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman may well be the combination which will be most attractive to the voters. I know that some readers of this blog are critical when I say things like that - but politics is about winning elections!

And we've already got one surprise recruit, the (former) Tory MP Quentin Davies. When we heard the news in the House of Commons, we could hardly believe it, as he certainly isn't the first name that would have come to mind as a potential defector to Labour - more likely names would have been the strongly pro-European MPs like David Curry or Ian Taylor, or the socially liberal John Bercow. However, Quentin Davies has been consistently very critical of Tory leaders' anti-European policies, and I imagine the Tory reaction to the European agreement at the weekend must have been the final straw!.

Of course, the Tories in responding to the defection have made much of Quentin Davies' less progressive record on other issues - but he's been an MP for 19 years, so he will know the views and outlook of Labour MPs from across the chamber, so he knows the party he is joining, and what he'll be expected to vote for. It's certainly a coup for Gordon Brown on the day he is to become Prime Minister.