LEADING LABOUR figures, including two former Northern Ireland secretaries of state, Peter Hain and Shaun Woodward, have failed to win places in Labour’s shadow cabinet elections, although speculation that former minister Yvette Cooper could be appointed as shadow chancellor by Ed Miliband have intensified after she easily topped in the elections involving Labour MPs.
Ms Cooper won 232 votes, followed by former housing minister John Healey, who is popular with backbench MPs on 192, while Ms Cooper’s husband, Ed Balls, who competed for the Labour leadership, also performed well, getting 179 votes. However, Diane Abbott, who also ran for the leadership, failed to win a place. Former health secretary and leadership challenger Andy Burnham did win a place.
The defeat of Mr Woodward, who defected from the Conservatives to Labour during the latter’s years in power, is not a surprise, though Mr Hain had been tipped for a more prominent post if he had secured a place.
While Labour MPs decide on the membership of the shadow positions, the positions each will hold is down to Mr Miliband, who will announce his decisions on Friday. His biggest challenge will be to decide on the shadow chancellor’s post – the key job in opposition during four years of austerity and spending cuts.
Many in Labour wish to see Ms Cooper getting the post, but her husband has strongly lobbied for it.
Mr Balls’s appointment, however, would allow the ruling coalition to accuse Labour of being “deficit-deniers”, since he has opposed the government’s plans to eliminate most of the deficit in four years and, indeed, voiced opposition to plans left by his former cabinet colleague Alastair Darling to clear it more slowly.
Equally, appointing Mr Balls would fuel fears that he would be dominant in the role, leaving Labour facing the prospect of the rivalry similar to that between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown which bedevilled New Labour.
Ms Cooper has treasury experience as a minister. She opted out of the leadership race to give her husband a free run and is being encouraged by colleagues to seek the job of shadowing chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne.