If anyone really thought that deputy leadership of the Labour Party was an influential post, one look at John Prescott's record in the role should be enough of an answer.
Hailed as some form of elemental "old Labour" trade unionist bastion against Blairite excess, Prescott instead served the combined role of bouncer, blustering speechmaker and incompetent working class bully: but he had no visible impact on any of Blair's key lines of policy.
As Gordon Brown lines up to take over, there is no greater prospect of the deputy playing a decisive role.
As we go to press, in advance of the close of nominations, it appears that six main contenders are set to bid for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party -only one of them with any serious left wing credibility.
Four of them are hardened Blairites: Party Chair Hazel Blears, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain; Education Secretary and one time trade union bureaucrat Alan Johnson, and Constitutional Affairs minister Harriet Harman.
Hilary Benn, the less than radical son of veteran left winger Tony, is arguably less hardline as a Blairite. As International Development Secretary, and has embraced a few relatively progressive policies on an international level, while remaining a loyal cabinet member.
He insists he is a "Benn not a Bennite", but there have been hints that his Dad might offer some left cover for his campaign - although Tony Benn has also been actively supporting John McDonnell's campaign, considerably more radical than anything Hilary has put forward
Blears, strangely, wins the odd one out prize as the only one of the six to have been photographed campaigning against government policy -when she joined a local picket opposing hospital closures, which Tony Blair had urged every Labour MP to support.
Harriet Harman, the other woman candidate, has also broken ranks, although less flamboyantly, on health policy, supporting local campaigners challenging cuts in mental health in her South East London constituency.
With the exception of Cruddas, MP for Dagenham, the only back bench candidate, and an active supporter of the Hope Not Hate campaign against the BP, all of the candidates offer a continuity from the Blair-Prescott era.
Cruddas is the only one to have worked for Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street, where he was a
deputy political Cruddas, the only secretary before
getting elected back bench himself to parliament candidate, has in 2001. campaigned He now portrays
himself as a left against the BNP wing rebel, but this
sits rather uncomfortably with the lavish financial and other support of his campaign from the far from left wing leadership of Unite, the new mega-union formed from the merger of Amicus and the T&G, which sponsors him as MP.
Cruddas has neither the track record nor the crisp and simple left wing agenda of McDonnell: but of the six he makes the least bad option and therefore the one Brown would least like to work with.
Brown's answer is likely to be one of leaving the Deputy leader on the sidelines, giving them no cabinet post or responsibility.
Trade union members should vote McDonnell and Cruddas -and build the fightback!