Dr Jonathan Cruddas (born 7 April 1962) is a British Labour Party politician who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 2001, first for Dagenham, and then from 2010 onwards for Dagenham and Rainham. Cruddas stood for the Deputy Leadership of the Labour Party in 2007, being eliminated in the penultimate round of the contest. Unlike the other candidates, he openly stated that he did not wish to become Deputy Prime Minister. He won the most votes of all candidates in the first round of voting, obtaining 19.39% of the vote from both party members and party-affiliated organisations, and it is thought that the second-choice votes of the Cruddas supporters contributed to Harriet Harman's eventual victory. After his campaign, he was offered a position in the Cabinet by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, which he turned down. Despite being touted by some media sources as a potential candidate for the future Leadership of the Labour Party, he ruled himself out of the 2010 election, saying that he did not want the job but wanted to influence policy. In 2012, Cruddas was appointed to Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet, becoming responsible for leading Labour's policy review.

James Mark Dakin Purnell (born 2 March 1970) is a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Stalybridge and Hyde from 2001 to 2010. He is currently the Chair of Trustees of the Institute for Public Policy Research and a Senior Advisor in the Public Sector practice of the Boston Consulting Group. He has previously served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; he resigned from the Government on 4 June 2009, criticising the leadership of Gordon Brown.

Born in the City of London, he received most of his education in France before returning to study for his A Levels at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford and then taking a first in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford.

As a student he worked in the summer holidays as a researcher to Tony Blair from 1989 to 1992. After graduating he worked as a research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research before moving to the BBC to become Head of Corporate Planning. In 1997 Purnell returned to work as a special adviser at Number 10 until 2001. He also served as a board member of the Young Vic theatre.