A good start in the shadow cabinet

Ed Miliband has chosen wisely in making Alan Johnson (left) his Shadow Chancellor, rather than Ed Balls or even Yvette Cooper, whatever her undoubted talents. She is an interesting choice as shadow foreign secretary, and her big success in the PLP vote deserved such a reward. Johnson has a sounder understanding of how to take on George Osborne and the coalition, and his humour should do wonders to prick Osborne's pompous sense of his own self-importance. Ed Balls has the chance to provide the Tories with the opposition they deserve on crime and justice policy, provided he is ready to reflect the views of ordinary Labour voters, and overcomes his own instinctive opposition to the sort of measures that have helped reduce antisocial behaviour and crime while Labour was in government. With Ed Miliband's loyal lieutenant Sadiq Khan shadowing Ken Clarke at Justice, this may be more difficult.

Andy Burnham's Blairite instincts should return some sanity to the party's schools policy, and he needs quickly to reclaim academies as a Labour success story, while ensuring that he develops a distinctive but constructive critique of the Tories' version. At health, John Healey needs to regain the initiative in challenging the destructive reorganisation of the NHS and reminding voters at every turn how the Tories ditched A&E and waiting time targets, as the consequences of Andrew Lansley's madness come home to roost. Jim Murphy is a good pick at defence, and Caroline Flint needs to find the right riposte to Eric Pickles at communities. By picking John Denham to shadow Vince Cable, Ed Miliband is ensuring that his mistaken graduate tax plans are advanced. Douglas Alexander is a good pick on work and pensions, and should be able to provide the constructive positioning needed on the issue. Interesting that he also wisely ignored the PLP, by giving Shaun Woodward Northern Ireland and Peter Hain Wales, pushing his shadow cabinet up to a hefty 27 places. Liam Byrne is a bit wasted shadowing the cabinet office unless he is explicitly taking on Nick Clegg (which Harriet Harman will do as deputy leader).

But there are big promotions - and a real test - for Mary Creagh shadowing DEFRA and Meg Hillier taking on Chris Huhne at environment. With Harriet Harman also shadowing International Development, Patricia Scotland as shadow Attorney General, Rosie Winterton as chief whip, Angela Eagle as shadow chief secretary, sister Maria at Transport, Ann McKechin covering Scotland and Tessa Jowell keeping her cherished Olympics role, Ed Miliband now has a record 12 women in his shadow cabinet, a vindication for Harman's efforts to achieve greater equality. The new shadow cabinet has many new faces. Now their challenge is to get the response to the Spending Review right. With AJ, there is a better chance that they will do so.

After a shaky start, Ed must pick the right shadow cabinet

There are two good things behind that paywall in today's Times, David Aaronovitch's excellent column and Sam Coates's tips for the shadow cabinet (page 11).

Unlike David Aaronovitch, I watched Ed Miliband's speech on TV, and gave my instant verdict on this blog - a clever speech but one that begged questions. But David A is right that Ed needs to show a desire to lead: he should have said he would campaign for AV, not just vote for it. His hard sections were quickly softened by crowd pleasers. Second, while I share the view that he probably had to address Iraq, I agree with David A that Ed M was utterly wrong in his characterisation of Tony Blair's foreign policy, and his passage would have been far more credible had it recognised how a Labour government saved tens of thousands of lives in Kosovo or Sierra Leone. Waiting for the UN - for which, read the principled leaders of Russia and China -to act is a recipe for genocide, as the people of Rwanda and Cambodia know only too well. Such positioning made it impossible for David Miliband to stay in the frontline.

Ed Miliband has the makings of a credible attack on the coalition's cuts, but he must avoid any repeat of last night's interview on Channel 4 News where he sounded too enthusiastic about tax (he needs a better way to express his plans for banking levies, and he should heed Nick Pearce's advice about the effect of focusing too much on redistribution rather than having a broad tax base to tackle inequalities). I know it is early days, and the switch of Chief Whip from Nick Brown to Rosie Winterton suggests a welcome steeliness. Yet to end Labour Party conference with a 'new generation' leader two points behind the Tories in the latest Yougov poll must be worrying.

But if Ed wants to move on from what has been a pretty inauspicious first week, he needs to get his shadow cabinet right. He could do a lot worse than the excellent suggestions for a well-balanced team made by Sam Coates - assuming they all get elected, and recognising that more than six women are likely to be in the team, as Harriet Harman and Rosie Winterton are there by right. Douglas Alexander or Liam Byrne would be right for shadow chancellor, Caroline Flint and Yvette Cooper would be great in education and health, Ed Balls (provided he is allowed to oppose the Tories properly) would be a powerful shadow home secretary and Pat McFadden deserves a big job like shadowing Vince Cable or Eric Pickles. Jim Murphy would be right for defence and Andy Burnham good at transport. Tessa Jowell should have Olympics. Coates proposes Harriet Harman as shadow foreign secretary, a just reward for her renaissance as acting leader and Alan Johnson to tease the increasingly pompous Nick Clegg. I doubt that Ed's advisers could do much better.