Tristram Hunt

Tristram entered the Leyton and Wanstead selection race with the support of Lord Mandelson after Jack Dromey had found more promising territory in the Midlands and abandoned his claim to the constituency. A problem then emerged in the shape of former MP and left winger John Cryer, who soon became the Leyton comrades’ favourite – so much so that on the night of the selection meeting a senior Downing Street staffer positioned himself at the doorway and asked Cryer "if you would even now, at this late stage, consider stepping aside, I’m sure we could, er, see to it that…" Cryer won easily, with Tristram dribbling in at fifth place out of six, to the fury of Mandelson.

Stoking dissent
When the veteran MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, Mark Fisher, decided to call it a day, the new Labour machine moved rapidly to ensure Tristram’s succession, even if it meant keeping all locals off the final shortlist of candidates.

Foremost among them was one Labour veteran, Gary Elsby, who then ran for parliament as an independent and whose decision to sport a red rose during the election campaign earned him a legal threat from the Labour party. With some members boycotting the selection meeting altogether, others attempting to have it reconvened and one former councillor and winner of the "Lifetime Service Award to Labour" sending his medal back to Gordon Brown in protest, Tristram was selected along lines that would have won the approval of the late Erich Honecker.

After the meeting he made the error of entering the local hostelry favoured by the Stoke comrades, only to be told to "Fuck off!" When some aggrieved hopefuls complained about him being parachuted in, they were told it had been a "Mandelson ask" of Gordon Brown.

He has recalled the affair rather differently in interviews since then, but perhaps his memory isn’t always reliable. In a pre-election Tribunecolumn, the cartoonist Martin Rowson reminisced about a tired and emotional encounter with a "rather tall patrician youth" at a Labour party conference during the 1990s. Hunt (for it was allegedly he) informed Rowson that "Peter Mandelson is the most important fucking minister in this fucking government!"

When Rowson replied: "What about Gordon Brown or Derry Irvine?", the youth spluttered: "Who the fuck is Derry Irvine and who the fuck are you anyway?" The youth staggered off, only to return and apologise a while later. "Sorry," he explained, "I didn’t realise who you were!" Tribune editor Chris McLaughlin resisted Hunt’s plea to suppress the piece, but did publish a letter from him denying that any such incident occurred.

Getting the Zac
Since those days of youthful japery Tristram has rather distinguished himself, winning plaudits for his books about Victorian cities and his biography of Friedrich Engels. He has also become a champion of what remains of the Stoke potteries industry and is sought after as one of those rare MPs who appears to have some hinterland. His big problem at Westminster is that people keep mistaking him for the lookalike Tory MP Zac Goldsmith.

Recently, after receiving rave reviews for his maiden speech, Tristram was brought down a peg or two by education secretary Michael Gove, who rebuked him in the House for talking about "less GCSEs" when he meant "fewer". Not that this should hold him back. Given the dearth of talent on the Labour benches, Tristram’s speedy promotion by either of the Milibands looks a dead cert – just so long as they don’t accidentally give the job to Zac instead.