• Almost three quarters are female (courtesy, in most cases of ‘all women shortlists’)
• The majority are either sitting or former local councillors, and many of them are former Council Leaders or Leaders of Labour Group
• Almost a third of candidates were full-time Labour Party staffers prior to their selection – either as specials advisers, political secretaries or researchers to MPs or MEPs
• One quarter have a background in the media/communications/PR & public affairs sectors
• Other common professional backgrounds include: education; the law; the trade union movement; and the voluntary/charitable sector
• Candidates from ethnic minorities likely to be elected include lawyer and former Chair of Liberty Sadiq Khan in Tooting, GMB race and equality officer Dawn Butler in Brent South, and urban regeneration adviser and Labour NEC member Shahid Malik in Dewsbury

A clutch of former advisers to Gordon Brown will be making the move from the backroom to the frontline at the election, in advance of their master’s likely accession to the top job during the next Parliament.

Prime amongst them is Ed Balls, the former special adviser to the Chancellor who went on to become the Treasury’s Chief Economic Adviser. The former economics journalist, lured away by Brown in Opposition, relinquished his place at the heart of the Labour government after eight years to become the PPC for the safe Labour seat of Normanton (the neighbouring seat to that of his wife and Labour minister Yvette Cooper). He is not expected to have to languor on the backbenches for long.

Like Ed Balls, his namesake and fellow former Treasury special adviser, Ed Miliband, will also now be joining the Labour benches, having been latterly selected for a safe Yorkshire seat. The ultra bright Miliband Jr can expect the same fast-track treatment afforded his older brother, Cabinet Office minister, David Miliband.

Completing the triumvirate of ex-Brown special advisers is Ian Austin. The able but unassuming Austin, who, unlike his more infamous predecessor Charlie Whelan, would never been found in Whitehall pubs shouting expletives into his mobile phone, has been media adviser to Brown since Whelan’s sudden departure mid-way through the first Labour term. A former West Midlands Labour Party campaigns officer, his selection as Labour candidate for Dudley North sees him return to his Black Country roots.

Another rising star and close ally of Gordon Brown, Pat McFadden, is set to become the MP for the neighbouring seat of Wolverhampton South East, vacated at the last minute by backbench MP, Dennis Turner who now goes to the House of Lords. McFadden, an Edinburgh University Labour Club contemporary of Brown acolyte, Douglas Alexander, in the mid 1980s, he then went on to work for Donald Dewar. By 1993 he was working for Labour Leader John Smith, where as a ‘fixer’ he helped to deliver Labour’s ‘one member, one vote’ reforms. Following the death of John Smith in 1994, his abilities as a political operator were recognised by Blair, who took McFadden on. In the last ten years working for Blair, latterly as the Prime Minister’s political secretary, McFadden has tactfully managed to rise above the tensions between the neighbours in Downing Street. As an MP under Blair, or Brown, his skills are likely to be put to good use.

The fifth former special adviser who will also be joining the new look Labour Parliamentary Party is the bright and personable Blairite, Kitty Ussher, an adviser to Patricia Hewitt at the DTI until her selection for the safe seat of Burnley. A hard-working researcher to a number of frontbench spokesmen in last five years of Labour time in Opposition, she subsequently went on to work at, the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Centre for European Reform think tank, and the now mothballed pressure group Britain in Europe, where she was the Chief Economist.

Other long-standing Labour Party staffers who are set to become MPs include: the highly regarded Jessica Morden, formerly the Welsh Labour Party General Secretary who takes over from one-time Conservative turned Labour MP Alan Howarth in Newport East; former Labour Trade Union liaison officer at Labour’s Millbank HQ and Brownite Natascha Engel, who formerly worked for Treasury minister John Healey, and at the Smith Institute think tank; Rob Flello, a charity chief executive and former tax consultant who was Regional Organiser for the Labour Party until last year; and Labour veteran Alison Seabeck who was formerly an adviser to local government minister Nick Raynsford and prior to that worked for Roy Hattersley.

In comparison to previous elections there will be relatively few candidates elected in 2005 who formerly worked as trade union officials. The 2005 intake should include three from public sector union Unison: Maggie Jones, a former Chair of the Labour Party and the union’s Director of Policy & Public Affairs in Blaenau Gwent; former miner, care worker and Unison official Dave Anderson; and Unison in-house solicitor Katy Clark. Jim McGovern, a former glazier and GMC official, is set to be elected in Dundee West.

Lawyers who are likely to become MPs include the barrister Andrew Slaughter who should become the new MP for Ealing Acton & Shepherd’s Bush. Formerly the Leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council, the able Mr Slaughter was also picked to contest the 1997 Uxbridge by-election. A number of women with a legal background in the legal profession are also contesting Labour held seats, including: lawyer and former legal adviser to the Labour Party, Kerry McCarthy, in Bristol East; barrister and ex member of the GLA, Diana Johnson, who contests Hull North; Islington barrister from leftwing Barrister Michael Mansfield QC’s chambers Emily Thornberry who will take over from Chris Smith if she succeeds in beating off the Lib Dem challenger; solicitor and Tooting councillor Sadiq Khan; and one of the few likely new MPs from the left of the party, Unison solicitor Katy Clark who takes over from Brian Wilson in Ayrshire.

From the field of the media and communications comes journalist and former BBC producer Celia Barlow who hopes to be elected in Hove; communications consultant, Rosie Cooper, a one-time Lib Dem councillor, who fights Lancashire West; former journalist, PR consultant and member of the GLA, Meg Hillier, who should succeed Labour dissident Brian Sedgemore in Hackney South; former public affairs consultant Tony Page, who takes over in Reading East; and youthful local councillor and media officer at British Nuclear Fuels, Jamie Reed, in Copeland. Two Labour candidates with a relatively rare finance related background are former Treasury civil servant Helen Goodman and management accountant Sarah McCarthy-Fry, who works for a defence and aerospace engineering company and hopes to take the marginal seat of Portsmouth North.

The class of 2005 will include a number of people with a background in the education sector. From the world of academia comes Mary Creagh who will succeed soft-left David Hinchliffe in Wakefield. Ms Creagh, a former London Enterprise Agency manager, has latterly been Lecturer in Entrepreneurship at Cranfield School of Management. Presuming she can hold off the Lib Dem challenger in City of Durham, fellow academic Roberta Blackman Woods, a Professor in Social Policy at the University of Northumbria, will also become an MP.

Others with a background in education fighting labour held seats include: former teacher, local education authority adviser and member of Labour National Policy Forum Anne Snelgrove who should take over from two-term MP Julia Drown in Swindon South; former teacher and schools inspector Nia Griffith, in Llanelli; Dr Angela Smith, a former lecturer and Cabinet member for Education on Sheffield Council (and one of only four new candidates in Labour seats that The Times could find willing to state that they backed the Iraq war); and former deputy head turned DfES regional director, Mike Ion, who hopes to keep Shrewsbury & Atcham in Labour hands.

The Liberal Democrat Intake?
Candidates selected to fight seats currently held by Lib Dem MPs include two able former MEPs who are likely to be rising stars in the new Liberal Democrat parliamentary party: Chris Huhne, a former economist and economics journalist, who contests the Lib Dem-Conservative marginal of Eastleigh; and Nick Clegg, former adviser to ex Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan is set to inherit Sheffield Hallam. Others include former London mayoral candidate and ex Vice- President of Citibank, Susan Kramer, who seeks to take over Richmond Park from Jenny Tonge; in Cheltenham, Martin Horwood, a former charity fundraiser with the Alzheimer’s Disease Society and Oxfam, and ex Union of Liberal Students chair; and Dan Rogerson, a former university administrator and political organiser for the Lib Dems who contests Cornwall North.

David Walter, the former political correspondent who went on to work for the Liberal Democrats as their Communications Director, is hoping to succeed John Burnett in the closely contested marginal of Devon West & Torridge. Another former party ‘spin-doctor’ Jeremy Brown, the former PR consultant and Lib Dem Director of Press & Broadcasting 1997-2000, would join Mr Walter if he can take the acutely marginal Taunton from the Conservatives – the Lib Dems’ No.1 target. North of the Border, former Lib Dem press officer and Head of Communications at The European Movement and Britain in Europe, Danny Alexander, must be the favourite in the rural Labour marginal of Inverness East Nairn and Lochaber.

If the Liberal Democrats look set to take a number of other marginal seats around the UK, the candidates that have the best prospects for success include: Cardiff Central’s youthful Jenny Willott, former head of office to Lembit Opik MP, who went on to work for UNICEF UK and Victim Support Wales; wealthy entrepreneur and Birmingham City Council Group Leader John Hemming in Birmingham Yardley; tax manager at Grant Thornton, Stephen Williams, who fights Bristol West; and public affairs consultants Tony Dawson, in Oldham East & Saddleworth, and Justine McGuinness, who contests the closely watched seat of Dorset West where Oliver Letwin is looking very vulnerable.

The Conservative Intake?
Three former MPs look virtually certain to rejoin the ranks of Conservative MPs. Former Foreign Secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind will become the fourth Conservative MP to represent the voters of Chelsea in the last eight years (after Mssrs Scott, Alan Clark and Michael Portillo). Backbench MP Christopher Fraser, who was PPS to the Shadow Leader of the House of Lords when ousted in Mid Dorset in 2001, succeeds Gillian Shephard in Norfolk South West. Former MP and PPS to John Redwood, David Evenett, who has spent two terms out of the Commons is likely to win back Bexleyheath & Crayford. Another with a harder task of winning the ultra marginal seat of Cheadle back from sitting Lib Dem MP, Patsy Calton, is the long-standing former Government whip Stephen Day.

Those with a legal background include: the solicitor and highly regarded Conservative Vice-Chairman Shailesh Vara; youthful former barrister, law lecturer and sitting London MEP Theresa Villiers; and City solicitors David Gauke in Hertfordshire South West and James Brokenshire in Hornchurch. The Warwick based barrister Jeremy Wright contests the highly marginal Rugby and Kenilworth.

As one might expect, many of the Conservative candidates likely to become new MPs come from the world of management, business and finance. Successful IT entrepreneur Adam Afriye will be the new MP for Windsor, former nurse turned businesswoman Nadine Dorries will inherit Mid Bedfordshire. Three company directors with their own publishing businesses are standing in seats held by the Conservative Party or highly marginal target seats: Graham Stuart in Beverley and Holderness; Jeremy Hunt, in marginal Surrey South West, who runs his own educational publishing company and is also a former management consultant; and Brian Binley, the locally rooted Conservative candidate in the target seat of Northampton South, who runs his own publishing & marketing company. In the neighbouring seat, Peter Bone, is an accountant and MD of his own travel business. In Welwyn Hatfield, the Conservative candidate Grant Shapps runs his own printing & design company. If the Conservatives take the marginal seats of Shipley and Selby, they will both be represented by former managers at ASDA’s Leeds HQ, Philip Davies and Mark Menzies.

Those with a background in finance include Nick Hurd, a former Brazil based banking executive (and son of Douglas Hurd); Greg Hands in Hammersmith & Fulham; and Ed Matts, a former Vice President of Citibank, who is contesting the razor-thin Labour marginal seat of Dorset South. In Essex, James Dudderidge, a former Barclays executive, in both the UK and Africa, should inherit Sir Teddy Taylor’s Rochford & Southend East, and former investment banker Brooks Newark has a tiny majority to overturn to become Braintree’s new MP. From accountancy comes Mark Harper in the marginal contest for Forest of Dean, and from the insurance industry, Tim Butcher, in Kent marginal Gillingham.

There are also a number of likely new Conservative MPs with a traditional background in armed forces. Ex Army Officer, overseas director at defence company Qinetiq, Member of the Scottish Parliament, Ben Wallace, contests the highly marginal seat of Lancaster and Wyre; utilities analyst Phillip Hollobone, who contests Kettering, is also a former paratrooper in the TA; City business development consultant and one-time researcher to ex Defence Secretary Tom King, Tobias Ellwood, is a former Royal Green Jacket; and Mark Lancaster, who hopes to win the seat of Milton Keynes North East, served as an officer in the Queens Gurkha Engineers, before becoming MD of the family fireworks business.

Neil Lindsay
Hill & Knowlton UK
nlindsay@hillandknowlton.com