Cruddas backs David Miliband for leader

Well as Owen Jones says on Twitter

'Cruddas backs DM' story is this:'ex-Blair adviser backs ex-Blair adviser'.No surprise if people look at JC's political record, not rhetoric .

Yep, check out some of my old posts for my views on this opportunistic chameleon of a Politician .

He backed 42 days detention, voted for the Iraq war and then changed his mind , supported Brown and backed a secret inquiry on Iraq.He praised the genius of Blair.

As Dave said :

Compass leaders like Jon Cruddas combine the ability to deliver speeches demanding that Trident be scrapped, council houses be built and the Post Office not be privatised, with the supine cowardice to vote for 42-day detention without trial, a measure he surely must know to be wrong.
On the one hand, Compass wants to present itself as pragmatic radicalism for the twenty-first century; on the other, it wants to keep New Labour sweet. Ultimately, it cannot do both.
It's politics offer too little, too late.

Anyway, seems he has kissed and made up with David Miliband after a little tiff when he was still brown nosing Gordon and Blair in the same interview , quite an achievement in hedging your bets with both New labour camps :

In an interview with The Times, Mr Cruddas said that none of those who claim to be Tony Blair’s allies come close to matching the former leader.

The Dagenham MP, who is one of David Miliband’s rivals to succeed Mr Brown, turned down a ministerial job last summer despite being most members’ first choice as deputy leader. He suggested to The Times that he was now willing to take a job under Mr Brown.

...

Mr Cruddas said that MPs had been reckless, irresponsible and divisive in calling for change without a candidate, timetable or alternative policy programme. “People will be watching with wide-open eyes unable to understand that . . . we should become preoccupied with electing another party leader. That’s what’s so wrong,” he said.

...

Mr Cruddas, who worked in No 10 under Mr Blair, sought to wrong-foot those who would dismiss him as a leftwinger, praising Mr Blair’s “genius” and making a barely coded attack on those such as Mr Miliband who were “acting under his banner”.

“Blair was a much more charismatic, sophisticated, inclusive and radical politician than any of those who claim adherence to Blairism now,” he said.

Mr Cruddas signalled that he was willing to shore up Mr Brown’s battered administration. “It’s all hands to the pump now,” he said. “A year ago I said my [deputy leadership] campaign wasn’t about a job in government and I felt you had to carry that through. My instinct is not oppositional. Whoever is leader, we’ve got to think how we put the band back together.”

He praised both Mr Miliband’s and Mr Purnell’s efforts in taking on the Conservatives. Labour had not laid a glove on the Tories for more than a year, he said. He criticised attempts to portray David Cameron as a “shallow salesman” and as a right-wing Tory posing as a moderniser. Instead, he urged his party to match Mr Cameron’s emotional literacy and expose the tensions between the Tory party’s liberal and authoritarian wings.

Now I know some say we need to be pragmatic , but there is a need for some sort of consistent principle in a politician ,surely? Either Cruddas is just a careerist, who says what he thinks will get him further or he is a ditzy indecisive guy who changes his mind as much as his underwear (hopefully !). Neither is grounds for some sections of the left seeing him as the sensible saviour of the soft left in Labour . Surely his backing of David Milliband will cause the naivety to disappear ?