Jon Cruddas would sit in the Cabinet as deputy

Jon Cruddas, wannabe deputy Labour leader, took part in a telephone conference with some Labour bloggers last night.

Scrybe asked for questions to put to him. Now, I don’t know much about him, but some of the stuff I’ve heard has made me worry that he might be setting himself up to be some sort of internal lefty dissident, which of course the other parties would love. So I suggested asking:

“You’ve said you don’t want to be Deputy PM nor hold a departmental portfolio. But would you want to sit in the Cabinet as some sort of minister without portfolio, so you can better connect us at the grass roots with what will (hopefully) be a more collegiate government? And would you accept collective responsibility as regards government policy or would you be willing to publicly dissent?”

Now, Scrybe seems to be having some post-champagne issues at present, but Omar, who was also involved, has posted:

“Jon said that he didn't want to be deputy prime minister because he wanted to focus on ensuring the party was involved in policy making - essentially bringing back an elected party chair. However, he indicated that he could be a non-portfolio holder in the cabinet and would therefore accept collective responsibility. He saw his potential role as intervening earlier in the policy making process to ensure that ‘things like top-up fees which were ruled out in the manifesto don't happen’.”

I’m still some way off deciding whom to support, but my worries about Cruddas have just eased.

(Update: Scrybe has now posted a full report.)