Biography of Policy Chief Jon Cruddas coming before election day

Labour’s policy chief Jon Cruddas is getting the biography treatment in the coming months, with an account of the Dagenham MP’s life and the party’s policy process hitting bookstores before election day in 2015.

For Labour supporters it’ll be a fascinating opportunity to get inside the head of one of Labour’s most interesting characters – and inside the party in the run up to the election campaign from one of its key figures.

The as yet untitled biography will be written by Jon Shepherd, who has already penned a biography of George Lansbury (often cited by Cruddas as his Labour Party hero) and should be out in the early part of next year.

Of course to make the biography worth reading, Cruddas will need to up his game in the coming months. Some in the party have begun to question the pace of the policy review – and why it still seems to be at a broad, deliberative stage. Cruddas will need to spend the next few months showing that he’s got the big ideas – and the ambition – to produce a genuinely radical Labour manifesto that brings together the Labour movement and provides a platform for victory in 2015.

If he does that, the book will certainly be worth a read…