The New Dpeuty Leader
Harriet Harman was today (26th June 2007) elected deputy Leader of the UK Labour Party to replace John Prescott who stands down next Thursday. She joins Gordon Brown who was formally announced as the new Leader to replace Prime Minister Tony Blair who leaves his post at the same time as Prescott.
Harman, an MP for 25 years since first being elected to the House of Commons in 1982, may well take up the post of Deputy Prime Minister, but the two posts (Deputy Leader of the party and Deputy Prime Minister) do not necessarily go together automatically. Harman beat five other candidates to beat favourite Alan Johnson by a very small majority (51% to 49%). So, who is she and what does she stand for?
A Single-Issue Campaigner?
She has long campaigned on women’s issues and for ‘family-friendly’ policies, a stance which certainly finds favour in today’s culture where the two-working-parent model dominates and economic necessity determines that it is likely to continue doing so. As was pointed out in a recent article in the Independent newspaper (link available through her campaign website) , whereas in 1982 her call for ‘substantial maternity pay, paternity pay, decent nursery and after-school clubs, and a right to flexible working for parents’ seemed like utopian politics, by 2007, all these policies lie squarely in the political mainstream. There is no doubt that she will use her newly-won position to push forward this agenda.
She is currently Minister for Justice at the Department for Constitutional Affairs, having originally graduated in Politics from York University and then qualified as a solicitor in 1974. She soon became a legal officer at Liberty (at the time known as the National Council for Civil Liberties) and developed a strong reputation as a campaigner for the rights of the less powerful in society. Once elected, she established the first Parliamentary Labour Party Women’s Group.
Harman and New Labour
She has long-standing links to Gordon Brown, having served as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury between 1992 and 1994 and served as one of the leadership team alongside Brown and Tony Blair which campaigned successfully for the Labour Party to modernise itself. This was the team that brought about the successful transformation to ‘New Labour’ that allowed the party to win a landslide victory in 1997.
Harman and the Future of the Labour Party
In the forthcoming general election (likely in 2008), the polls have indicated that Harman was the Deputy Leadership candidate that new Conservative leader should fear most. She appeals to the middle classes of middle England (and particularly the women voters in this group) in a way that Alan Johnson (and indeed Gordon Brown) could not. Her women-friendly policies will be strong vote-winners and she will be much harder to portray as being dour and hard-nosed than will Brown.
Precisely what role she will play has yet to be determined. There will undoubtedly be speculation as to whether she will become the first woman leader of the Labour Party. That is for the long-term. In the short, she will be play a role supporting the new Prime Minister, helping rebuild the party’s organisation in preparation for the forthcoming general election, and finally, ensuring she continues to push forward the political agenda she has championed over the last quarter century.
