Jon Cruddas

Jonathan Cruddas (born 7 April 1962) is a British Labour Party politician who has served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Dagenham and Rainham since 2010, and formerly for Dagenham between 2001 and 2010.

He was a Visiting Fellow of the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1987 to 1989.

In 1989, he became a policy officer for the Labour Party before being appointed Senior Assistant to Labour Party General Secretary Larry Whitty in 1994, remaining in that position when Tom Sawyer became General Secretary that same year.

Cruddas was educated at the Oaklands Roman Catholic Comprehensive School, Waterlooville, Portsmouth, before attending the University of Warwick where he ultimately received an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Industrial and Business Studies in 1991, writing a thesis entitled An analysis of value theory, the sphere of production and contemporary approaches to the reorganisation of workplace relations.

After the 1997 general election, he was employed as Deputy Political Secretary to newly elected Prime Minister Tony Blair.

His main role was to be a liaison between the Prime Minister and the trade unions, with whom Blair had often had a difficult relationship.

In this role, he also worked heavily on the introduction of the minimum wage.

Cruddas was selected to be the prospective parliamentary candidate for the safe Labour seat of Dagenham in 2000, after the sitting MP Judith Church announced that she would be retiring.

A graduate of the University of Warwick, Cruddas was first elected to Parliament at the 2001 general election.

He was elected as the MP for Dagenham the following year at the 2001 general election, with a majority of 8,693 votes.

From the backbenches, Cruddas quickly became a vocal critic of the government for what he saw as their ignoring of their traditional, working-class support in a bid to be more appealing to middle-class voters.

He rebelled against the government on a number of occasions; including on the introduction of university top-up fees, the legislation on asylum seekers, the introduction of trust schools, proposals to renew the UK Trident nuclear weapons system, and foundation trusts.

He supported both the Fourth Option for direct investment in council housing and the Trade Union Freedom Bill.

Cruddas was re-elected at the 2005 general election, but his Dagenham constituency was abolished in boundary changes for the 2010 general election.

Cruddas chose to contest the newly created constituency of Dagenham and Rainham, which was notionally marginal.

He won the seat by 2,630 votes in a close-run election campaign, which was a seat that the British National Party had heavily targeted.

This resulted in a large number of anti-fascist organisations not affiliated to the Labour Party, such as Hope not Hate, campaigning for Cruddas to resist the BNP.

On 27 September 2006, Cruddas announced his intention to stand to become Deputy Leader of the Labour Party once the incumbent, John Prescott, stood down.

He said he did not want to be Deputy Prime Minister, but instead wished to act as a "transmission belt" with the grassroots of the party.

In interviews, Cruddas also said that he did not want the "trappings or baubles" that would potentially come with the job of Deputy Prime Minister, such as use of the Dorneywood weekend country residence.

Cruddas accrued nominations from 49 MPs and received strong union backing, including Amicus and the Transport and General Workers' Union.

He received backing from former Deputy Leader Roy Hattersley, then Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, NUS President Gemma Tumelty, and former National Executive Committee member, actor and presenter Tony Robinson.

The left-wing magazine Tribune endorsed him as "the change that is required".

Having been critical of many aspects of the Blair government, he stood for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party in 2007, although he openly stated he did not wish to become Deputy Prime Minister.

Despite winning the most votes in the first round of voting, he was eliminated in the penultimate round of the contest.

On 24 June 2007, it was announced that Harriet Harman had won the election, although Cruddas gained the highest proportion of votes in the first round.

He was ultimately eliminated in the fourth round of voting, coming third behind Harman and Alan Johnson.

He had secured the highest number of votes from members of affiliated organisation in every round before his elimination.

Cruddas ruled himself out of the 2010 leadership election, saying he would rather influence policy.

After being elected, he took up a part-time position teaching Labour history at University College, Oxford, from 2010 to 2012.

Touted by some media sources as a potential candidate for the leadership of the Labour Party, he ruled himself out of the 2010 leadership election and said he did not want the job; but instead wanted to influence policy.

In 2012, Cruddas was appointed to Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet, replacing Liam Byrne as Policy Coordinator.

In August 2022 Cruddas announced his intention to retire from Parliament at the next General Election.

Cruddas was born in Helston, Cornwall to John, a sailor, and Pat (a native of County Donegal, Ireland).

In 2012, Cruddas was appointed to Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet, replacing Liam Byrne as Labour Party Policy Coordinator.

On 15 May 2012, Labour Leader Ed Miliband offered Cruddas a position in his Shadow Cabinet as Labour's Policy Coordinator, with a view to crafting Labour's manifesto for the 2015 general election.

Cruddas accepted the offer, saying that it had always been his wish to influence policy.

Cruddas is a visiting fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford (2016–present), and is also a visiting professor at the University of Leicester (2016–present), primarily involved with the Centre for Sustainable Work and Employment Futures.

The Future of Work Commission was announced at the 2016 Labour Party Annual Conference in Liverpool.

The goal of the commission is to make a set of achievable policy recommendations, which will be delivered in a report in September 2017 at Labour Annual Conference in Brighton.