Reflections of a stormy petrel

...if there is anyone in the wreckage of a collapsing Labour Party who really looks to me like a possible rising star, it is housing minister Caroline Flynt. Shoved up to be the face of Government in one of the most difficult and thankless fronts of the long collapse, she has been demeaning herself with cool intelligence, not much of the usual repetitious turns of phrase and answers-that-do-not-answer which are the stock in trade of New Labour, and with a certain intellectual authority which reminds me of Vincent Cable, the Lib Dem economics spokesman who is by far the most interesting and intelligent politician in Britain. And Ms.Flynt is also young and remarkably good-looking, which nobody would say of Mr.Cable. One hopes she does not lose her seat in the coming electoral catastrophe, because she has, in my view, more of the stuff of a leader than any of the no-hopers who are being touted as Brown's possible successors.