Macer Hall
and Mr Crabb as a marketing consultant. In contrast to many in senior ranks in the Commons both have experience of running businesses.
Mr Crabb was first elected MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire at the 2005 general election while Mr Smith joined him in the Commons five years later to represent Pontypridd. They were swiftly marked out as future stars and after rising through junior frontbench ranks Mr Crabb was Welsh Secretary with Mr Smith as his opposition shadow by last summer.
Now Work and Pensions Secretary, Mr Crabb is highly rated within David Cameron’s team. “Crabby is a top man,” a senior figure in Downing Street told me. “He is going places.”
Mr Smith, in the shadow welfare brief, has managed to retain cordial relations with his own party leader despite not sharing Corbynite hard- Left views. His ability to forge alliances with moderate and more Left- leaning colleagues is seen as giving him the potential to emerge as a unity candidate if Mr Corbyn is forced out. And he has not hidden his leadership ambitions. “Yes of course it would be an honour and a privilege to do that,” he said with refreshing honesty this year when asked if he wanted to be Labour leader.
His chance may not be far off. Labour moderates are preparing a coup attempt to oust the floundering Mr Corbyn after the EU referendum on June 23. The hunt is on for a candidate who can appeal to a broad swathe of the party’s grass roots and yet with the credibility to give hope that the party might just be back in contention in time for the 2020 general election. Mr Smith, a skilled communicator with experience of business success, appears to fit the bill.
Mr Crabb might face a longer wait than his opposition shadow for a chance to have a go in a party leadership contest. Yet the race for the Tory crown could dramatically accelerate if the Prime Minister loses his campaign to keep Britain in the EU next month. And even if Mr Cameron is victorious, an atmosphere of restlessness in Tory ranks is growing following his promise to stand down before 2020.
Many within both the main parties are yearning for very different types of leaders next time. Tory backbenchers speak of the need to move on from the patrician Cameron era by finding a successor who embodies the party’s values of aspiration, self- reliance and the championing of social mobility.
SUCH a desire disfavours the longstanding contenders Boris Johnson and George Osborne with their privileged backgrounds. And Tory leadership races almost always favour the outsider against the establishment candidates.
Labour too needs to find a leader who can appeal to the country’s aspirational voters rather than a marginal group of hard- Left fanatics. To have any hope of saving the party from oblivion the next Labour leader needs to be a credible winner yet with a stronger commitment to the party’s traditional values than the shallow opportunism of the Tony Blair era.
Born just three years apart and growing up within a few miles of each other, Mr Crabb and Mr Smith look like serious contenders. Their stories could well converge and clash again in what is shaping up to be a compelling Westminster thriller.
‘ Both look like serious leadership contenders’