Cruddability

From Coffee House to Telegraph Blogs, they cannot get their heads around the fact that Jon Cruddas is a serious Eurosceptic. But of course he is. Such have almost always come from the Labour benches.

The Conservative ones have been far less numerous and, frankly, rather frivolous for the most part. Teresa Gorman and what have you. Jacob Rees-Mogg. Easily run rings around by everyone from Clarke and Heseltine to Clarke and Cameron.

The Keynesian, pro-Commonwealth, anti-Thatcher and then anti-neocon Eurosceptical tradition does exist in that party, in figures such as Sir Peter Tapsell and the Walkers père et fils.

But it has always been far more common in Labour. It kept Britain out of the euro; thank you, Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, the two hands of Gordon Brown. It has been proved right spectacularly. And Jon Cruddas embodies it.

He should have been Deputy Leader last time. He will probably get it unopposed before this Parliament is out. At the very least, one hopes so.