Labour deputy leadership hopeful Jon Cruddas tells Barckley Sumner how the party can be rebuilt and why it must engage with the whole political landscape

IT USED to be said of the vice-presidency in the United States that it was not worth a bucket of warm spit. Since the job was created - before the Second World War - the same quip could be made about the deputy leadership of the Labour Party. Previous incumbents have tended to be thwarted and bitter leadership candidates or blancmange-like compromises promoted above their ability in the interests of "unity" or to block more talented but contentious alternatives. Who now but a political anorak remembers Ted Short, Harold Wilson's last number two? But with Labour leadership and deputy leadership elections fast approaching - probably early next year - all that could be about to change

With Gordon Brown almost certain to replace Tony Blair, despite what John Reid and his motley band of revisionists may dream about, the serious contest and accompanying political debate is likely to involve those vying to succeed John Prescott.

This race has become more interesting since Dagenham MP and former Number 10 apparatchik Jon Cruddas threw his hat in the ring. Cruddas has been following an increasingly independent-minded path since he entered Parliament at the 2001 general election and he has been widely praised for his anti-fascist and anti-racist campaigning against the British National Party.

I caught up with him in the glass menagerie of Westminster's Portcullis House cafeteria shortly before the end of the parliamentary recess. Since he announced his candidature, he is becoming increasingly noticed. While we were talking, Keith Hill, the Prime Minister's parliamentary private secretary, walked passed and called out: "Ah, the chosen one".

The catalyst for Cruddas' candidature was an article in The Guardian last month in which he argued that Labour's next deputy leader should concentrate wholly on internal party matters. The position should be merged with that of party chair and, critically, the deputy leader should not be Deputy Prime Minister. How and why did Cruddas come to this view?

"There is no reason why this should be cast in tablets of stone. Why can't we have a debate about the nature of the job, rather than just assume that this should be a beauty contest within the Government for those who want to be Deputy Prime Minister?

"I think the needs of the Labour Party are so acute that the job, in and of itself, should be enough for anyone. Labour is in real problems on the ground. The job to solve that is so large that we should close off the ready assumption the deputy leader should be Deputy Prime Minister as well".

In an interview in last week's Tribune, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, who has announced his own bid to become deputy leader, was scornful of Cruddas' proposal that this should not necessarily mean becoming Deputy Prime Minister. Hain said: "If you really want to have a voice and influence at the top, the deputy leader has to be at the Cabinet table, not banging on the door outside."

Cruddas is unimpressed. "That is ridiculous and a complete misreading of what I said. I haven't got a firm view on whether the deputy leader should have a place in the Cabinet. I can see pros and cons on that. What I don't think the deputy leader should have is a Government portfolio job.

"My argument is to give the post-holder the authority to articulate the views of the Labour Party to the Government. My objective is to act as a transmission belt between the party and the Government. I don't think you can do that if you are working 70 hours a week on a portfolio. I know that makes people uncomfortable who simply want to be Deputy Prime Minister."

Cruddas wants to transform the deputy leader's job into a full-time campaigning post. Why is this so important? "The hollowing out of the Labour Party is not a recipe for the longevity of the Government. We are down from 400,000 to fewer than 200,000 members. How many voted in the last National Executive Committee elections - 35,000? On every indices of a vibrant party, all are in decline. Anecdotally, all the evidence I pick up around the country is that we are in crisis in our capacity on the ground. There is a real danger of us emptying out as an organisational structure."

Surely the present leadership shares these concerns? "The agenda coming out of head office and the Government suggests that it has in mind a model of a virtual party. That is not based on real people at local level developing real campaigns. Instead, with the aid of new technology, it is based on an occasional email to an amorphous supporter base which you sometimes hit with a plebiscite if you have a difficult issue. It involves the removal of the checks and balances in the party, including the federal architecture which means trade union involvement at every level."

Cruddas is caustic in his criticism of the leadership's enthusiasm for a supporters' network while ignoring paying members. "This is like Beau Geste. The MP goes round propping up dead bodies on the turrets. It is based on a false army, ghosts. You might as well hand the party, lock, stock and barrel, to Phillip Gould and the focus groups. It is symptomatic of the way the party is failing to renew itself.

"It is essentially an authoritarian strategy. It is very top-down. It is based on the notion that we are in post-party politics - that political parties are inevitably in decline. It would mean the end of Labour as a mass membership party."

Cruddas also believes the desire for a supporters' network has serious implications for the future direction of Labour policy. "I would argue that the reason why they have to rebuild the party around supporters is because they realise that the Labour Party itself could not and would not support the whole shape of Government policy.

"Therefore, it has to build a different structure to support political power, which seeks to dominate a particular part of the electoral landscape - specifically, middle England - with a policy agenda increasingly at odds with the needs of a community like mine. If you think this political strategy is legitimate and meets the aims and values of this great movement, then so be it. I personally don't."

Cruddas has a distinct view of how Labour should develop, taking his inspiration from the relaunched Democrats in the Unites States and the anti-fascist and living wages campaigns recently established in Britain. "Howard Dean takes over the chair of the Democratic National Committee and he develops a 50-state strategy. It is exactly what the Republicans did after Watergate. We have to rebuild Labour as a living, breathing party across the landscape.

"If you go to east London, west Yorkshire or parts of the Black Country and you look at anti-fascist campaigns, or Canary Wharf and living wage issues, you see lots of young people involved in popular front-style politics. There is a really vibrant alternative politics out there, which is off the radar of the political elites."

Cruddas wants Labour to adopt a pluralist, federal structure, built from the bottom up, based on an active membership base. Many of his ideas are included in a recent Compass pamphlet entitled Fit for Purpose? A Programme for Labour Party Renewal, which he wrote with Guardian journalist John Harris. He backs a cap on national party funding. At a local level, he supports the idea of a voter voucher. Everyone who voted at a general election would be able to decide which party to give a £3 voter voucher to. The money would then be used for local campaigning.

"You can very quickly build up a ring-fenced fund for hundreds of organisers around the country. That would be your force for rebuilding the Party."

If Cruddas wins the deputy leadership, what would he seek to accomplish during his first 100 days in the job? "The central problem we have as a party and Government is that we are preoccupied with a very small slice of the electoral territory. That creates a vacuum in the electoral landscape. The key task is to rebuild our presence and involvement in every part of the electoral map.

"Second, we need to rebuild the policymaking structure of the party. The National Policy Forum is simply a vehicle for political management. We need to change the way constituencies elect their representatives and we need to use new technology to democratise decisions and give people options. I would go as far as to change its name and call it a National Council for Labour, as was initially envisaged."

Those critical of Cruddas' candidature have pointed to his inexperience, accused him of taking part in some sort of political kite-flying exercise and suggested he will drop out once the real campaign gets underway. He refutes this.

"I wouldn't go into this half-cocked. I have been surprised by the amount of support we have got already. We are building networks of support in every constituency. Strangely enough, I think it is a virtue to be unknown, so it is not a beauty contest or about personalities. That demeans the real issues we need to address within the party and the policy issues that we have."

There is a feeling among some Labour members that, with David Cameron's Tories making headway in the opinion polls, now is not the time to change course. Cruddas disagrees. "Cameron is following exactly the same rulebook as `new' Labour. They obviously use it as night-time reading and it is very effective in the short term.

"I see it as a real opportunity as Cameron moves to the centre. It gives us a chance to move the debate to the left. Currently, the Tories are trying to outflank us on the left and we at our conference tried to outflank them on the right. That is cross-dressing gone mad.

"The alternative strategy is that we have got to stake some political territory on the left and be proud to articulate a different kind of economic and social model. That is why the debate over the leadership should not be about accepting there are no ideological differences within the party because we are all settled about the strategy. I'm not. In the areas I represent, the status quo is not an option."