Long before this year’s general election, David Miliband and Jon Cruddas were engaged in what their supporters described as “back-channel talks” over what would happen when Labour lost power – as both knew the party would – and Gordon Brown was forced to resign. Neither man was a supporter of Brown and each longed to remake the Labour Party as something bolder, more pluralistic and collegiate. Many on the left of the party were urging Cruddas, who stood for the deputy leadership in 2007, supported by the powerful Unite union, to stand for the leadership as well. “There are circumstances in which Jon could run and win the leadership,” his friend Neal Lawson, chair of the Compass group, told me in February.
But even then, Cruddas and Miliband were working towards a deal: Miliband would stand for the leadership, with an explicit endorsement from the MP for Dagenham; Cruddas would seek to become chairman of the party, if it became an elected position.
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