The 13 MPs to watch in 2013

One last list for 2012, from my article in The Independent on Sunday yesterday. I chose the 12 MPs of the 2010 intake who might be future prime ministers, six Labour and six Conservative, plus one Liberal Democrat who might be deputy prime minister, using a complex algorithm, the precise formula for which is a secret.

Labour

Luciana Berger, 31; Gloria De Piero, 39; Michael Dugher, 37; Rachel Reeves, 33; Jonathan Reynolds, 32; and Chuka Umunna, 34.

Conservative

Sam Gyimah, 36; Matthew Hancock, 34; Jo Johnson, 40; Kwasi Kwarteng, 37; Dan Poulter, 34; and Anna Soubry, 56.

Liberal Democrat

Duncan Hames, 35.

One of the factors of the secret formula, which I did not mention in the article, is “the inner urge to get to the highest place”, as Sylvia Littlejohns called it. She had been Anthony Crosland’s secretary before she was Tony Blair’s, in 1983-89.

Almost all MPs are ambitious. Most of them wanted at some stage to be prime minister, but it is the discipline and madness of that urge that is perhaps the most important determinant of success, apart from a plausible manner on television.

As Blair showed, though, that inner urge could be well concealed a lot of the time, so in many of the cases above I admit I am guessing.

Update: I had a disastrous moment of indecision over one additional name. I think Sajid Javid, 43, is impressive. Son of a Rochdale bus driver. Deutsche Bank director. Economic Secretary to the Treasury. But I’m not sure about the career in banking, or the TV test, and in the end Kwarteng came out just ahead.

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• creggancowboy

  Berger? Didn’t she get her nomination cos she was Euan Blair’s mainsqueeze? isn’t Euan tipped for a Sheffield seat? Isn’t nepotism a Tory vice?

• omasta

  This complex algorithm is void of unknown unknowns and known unknowns thus rendering it useless.

• http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1483430982 Mark Stephen Golding

  Repeal of articles

  The repeal of clause 26 in 1829, by the Offences against the Person Act 1828 (9 Geo. 4 c. 31 s. 1),[45] was the first time a clause of Magna Carta was repealed. With the document’s perceived inviolability broken,[citation needed] in the next 140 years nearly the whole charter was repealed, leaving just Clauses 1, 9, and 29 still in force after 1969. Most of it was repealed in England and Wales by the Statute Law Revision Act 1863, and in Ireland by the Statute Law (Ireland) Revision Act 1872.[45]

• http://twitter.com/francessmith frances smith

  six is too many, if your alogirithm really works you should be able to pick one from each party. though to be honest picking anyone from the tories or lib dems is just a waste of calculator juice, their careers will be over in 2015.

  (unless they are found hanging from a lamp post following the armed insurrection before that date.)