Fiona Millar to the Commons…

Richard Kay’s column in the Mail contains the news, as expected, that Fiona Millar (AKA Mrs Alistair Campbell) is a shoo-in to replace Glenda Jackson as Labour’s candidate for the Hampstead and Kilburn constituency.

The seat is very marginal: Jackson scraped in by just 42 votes last time round. But, if Millar were to win the nomination and subsequent election, she’s being tipped for immediate promotion. Kay reports that a ‘senior party figure’ told him that Millar would become Education Secretary ‘within a year’, assuming Labour was in government.

Millar founded the Local Schools Network as a bulwark to protect comprehensive education and she is an impassioned and determined critic of Michael Gove and the Academy schools introduced by the Blairite education reformer, Lord Adonis.

Labour has been losing the argument with Michael Gove in recent months, signified by its retreat on blanket opposition to free schools. If Millar were to become involved in formulating Labour’s education policy, it would be interesting to see if the policy develops or regresses back into the party’s bygone comfort zone.