A small but significant reshuffle

The reshuffle is done and dusted then, for the time being at least. It won’t be long before the rumours start up again, reaching a crescendo (with reports that shadow cabinet member are “fighting for their lives”) around conference season, before the inevitable full reshuffle in October. So far yesterday’s changes have been talked down – not least by he party. It was briefed as small, and the response of the press and many activists was “is that it?”.

But although limited, this reshuffle is actually very significant, largely because it heralds the return of one of Labour’s prodigal sons (though not the prodigal brother, yet) to a major role in the party. It’s wrong to say that Jon Cruddas is “back” – he’s never been in a senior party role after all – but he’s now properly re-engaged, a testament perhaps to how Miliband the younger has won over many of his fiercest critics in the PLP.

So who is Jon Cruddas? Is he the radical left winger who the Daily Mail believe represents a lurch to the left? Of course not. That’s laughable. Cruddas is a man who refuses to be pigeonholed, and with each passing year makes it harder and harder to do so.

Is he a Blairite? The flexible use of that term these days would suggest he could qualify, having worked for Blair, and backed David Miliband for the leadership two years ago.

Is he a left winger? That term too is pretty vague now, and having been the darling of Compass and the most left of the candidates for the Deputy Leadership in 2007, maybe he also qualifies for that label.

But can you be both? Is Jon Cruddas a left wing Blairite? Perhaps, and perhaps not. No labels. Please. We’ll be here all day…

What he is though is a big thinker – the media have that one right at least. Sometimes that can tend towards abstraction (something Ed Miliband himself is prone to), but often it can lead to him raise issues which the political class has ignored – housing being perhaps the best example.

Ideologically, if you’ll permit me to use such a loaded term, Cruddas ties together many of the seemingly disparate strands of what may eventually become known as Milibandism. The politics of community organisation and engagement, winning back disillusioned working class voters, a “fair deal” on jobs and houses for working people, dealing with societal inequality, but also looking at social as well as financial inequality.

Not so much Blue Labour, more like Blue Collar Labour. Made in Dagenham.

His appointment received broad support – as befits someone who has flirted with both the left and right within the movement. Indeed his support is so broad that you might almost think he had designs on the big job one day, if he hadn’t already let his best chance pass him by. In 2010 his campaign was ready to go. He was told he had a good chance of winning, and that by 2015 he could be PM. He baulked at the idea.

He doesn’t want to be in charge, but he does want to change the country. If he and Miliband can rein each other in, rather than doubling down on abstraction, then they both might just make the kind of changes that they – and we – are all in this for. Building a better, fairer, more equal and just Britain.

Let the work of change begin….