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Ed Balls dominates Labour party as supporters pack frontbench



Tories warn that a 'Brownite cabal' now runs the Labour party as supporters of David Miliband are sidelined
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Supporters of Ed Balls are more likely to sit on the Labour frontbench than those who voted for Ed Miliband. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA


It has not been a glorious month for Ed Balls.

Gordon Brown's biographer, Anthony Seldon, told him in an open letter in the New Statesman last month to take a sabbatical until 2017 to ensure Ed Miliband's breath no longer has the "smell of a toxic brand".

And then Balls struggled to capitalise on George Osborne's difficulty when Moody's deprived Britain of its Triple A credit rating, as Benedict Brogan noted in the Daily Telegraph.

But Balls can take comfort. Research by the Tory whip Greg Hands has found that the shadow chancellor maintains quite a grip on the Labour frontbench.

Hands has trawled through the list which shows how every Labour MP voted in the 2010 leadership contest. This shows Balls has the best record of ensuring that his supporters have been rewarded with – and have since maintained – places on the frontbench.

Hands calculates that, on the basis of first preference votes, 51% of those who supported Balls sit on the frontbench compared with 45% of Ed Miliband's supporters, 38% of David Miliband's supporters, 13% of Andy Burnham's supporters and 0% of Diane Abbott's supporters.

Hands says:


The Brownite cabal at the top of Labour is prospering, and the easing out of David Miliband supporters illustrates Labour's dangerous lurch to the left. These figures show the continuing takeover at the top of the Labour party by the Brownites at the expense of the Blairites, as supporters of the Two Eds win out over supporters of David Miliband. Remarkably, to prosper personally in today's Labour party, you're best off having voted in 2010 for the candidate who came 3rd - Ed Balls, and if you voted for the candidate who came 1st amongst MPs - David Miliband - you're probably toast.

Ed Miliband's supporters are likely to dismiss the idea of a Balls takeover on the grounds that the Labour leader received more than twice the number of votes as the shadow chancellor in the MPs and MEPs section. Miliband won 84 first preference votes in this section compared with 40 for Balls. This meant it was more difficult for Ed Miliband to reward all his supporters.

The leadership will also say that David Miliband's two joint campaign managers – Douglas Alexander and Jim Murphy – have prospered. They are, respectively, shadow foreign secretary and shadow defence secretary.

But the research by Hands highlights one characteristic of Balls which he shares with his mentor, Gordon Brown. The shadow chancellor, whose long standing ally David Watts was elected last year as chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party, goes to great length to look after his supporters.

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