Jon Cruddas backs David Miliband in Labour leadership vote

The New Statesman’s just revealed that Jon Cruddas, darling of the Left and the big unions in the deputy leadership contest of 2007, has backed David Miliband.

This had been coming down the tracks for a while but is still a shot in the arm for David Miliband as the candidates near the most important phase of this contest. Voting papers go out on 1 September.

This endorsement gives David Miliband some much needed left ballast. David Miliband has been cast as the Blairite candidate and in his own distinctive voice Jon Cruddas tries to explain in tomorrow’s New Statesman why he’s backing such a guy:

“I know it’s functional for people to caricature Miliband as some sort of late Blairite, but that was never the guy I knew.

That’s partly why he left Downing Street, by the way; he didn’t embrace some of the more full-on versions of what (Blairism) became. It was a much more balanced, radical political movement in its early knockings. Now you have a bastardised Blairism that people are trying to define Miliband as (part of), whereas he always belonged to the more thoughtful elements of Blairism.”

Cruddas picked up 9 per cent of the trade union members’ first preference votes in the deputy leadership contest of 2007 – that’s about one third of all the trade unionist votes cast (they’ve got one third of Labour’s electoral college).

He also got 18 per cent of party members’ first preferences. Back then he had some big union backing. This time that’s gone to Ed Miliband for the most part.

But Camp David will be hoping that Cruddas’ popularity with the grassroots will help to get their man over the line and elected.