HARRIET Harman was unveiled as Labour's new deputy leader today after a nailbiting contest.
The justice minister emerged as the surprise victor with 50.43% support after fifth preferences were taken into account.
Education Secretary Alan Johnson, the bookies' favourite to become Gordon Brown's partner at the top of the party, was a close second.
Mr Johnson received 49.56% in the race, missing out by the narrowest of margins.
Tensions ran high in the conference hall in Manchester as NEC chairman Mike Griffiths ran through the voting round by round.
One by one the other candidates - International Development Secretary Hilary Benn, Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, Labour chairwoman Hazel Blears, and finally backbencher Jon Cruddas - were knocked out and their support redistributed.
Ms Harman said it was an "honour and a privilege" to be elected deputy leader and an "honour and a privilege" to work alongside Gordon Brown.
She said she was confident about the future because of what Labour had achieved in ten years in Government.
She praised the minimum wage, cutting waiting lists in the NHS and policies to help young people find work and their impact on her constituents in Peckham, south London.
"This would never have happened without Labour," she said.
Is Harriet Harman the right person to be deputy? Have your say.
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I'm not bothered really, will be the same old labour, same old policies of taking as much as they can I tax and ruining our country further.
Bring on a general election I say
It's not going to change anything though,is it?
bye bye blears - consigned to the discount bin.
obviously mr brown didnt think muvh of her as party chairperson as he sacked her straight away, all it takes now is for the new salford constituency and hey presto! she gets her p45.
Well done Harriet. The only person to have left her family to spend more time with politics. What's her wideboy husband doing these days? I only hope she'll be as effective as Two Jags. Roll on the general election.
I don't care for Brown and Harman. It's the same dog washed ! We need a general election as Brown wasn't elected as Prime Minister and as he represents a Scottish constituency. I feel he should be in the Scottish Parliament and not the English one. I find it obscene that MP's with constituencies in Scotland are in London, making laws which affect the English. No wonder they gave the scots free university education and prescriptions -they have forced the English to pay for them without us enjoying those benefits themselves. We really have become the joke of the UK and will continue to be so unless there's radical changes made in England.
As I've said before. This is a non-job. It was created by Mr. Blair to give 'two-Jags' a job.
We do not need a deputy PM, we did quite alright by using the Home Secretary for the number of times that the PM was out of the country.
It's a needless and wanton waste of taxpayers money.
Ah but she's got a lovely smile. What's the millionnaire husband up to these days? Still involved with the italians?
Sadly, Harriet is the same as many labour wallers these days - a champagne socialist. Even Boyo Kinnock has become wealthy beyond his wildest dreams as a result of his 'socialist' politics. They are all hypocrits. Bring back Michael Foot - at least he was true to his beliefs.
There is a major difference between Prescott and Harman. He was there to unite the party and be a voice of the rank and file (originally). harman is an out and out brownite.
The only good thing to come out of their election was the fact they used the Alternative Transferable Vote system which I'd like for all public elections. If we had some kind of electoral reform, we could have a real Labour Party for the people with no worries about the tories ever having a majority again - or a New SDP Government with 35% of the vote for that matter.
Oh Princess, I don't think we want a 'real' labour party. The last time we had a real labour party in power we had corpses hanging around waiting to be buried. Oh no, if we have to have a so called labour government, I'd prefer this type to the type who used to brown nose Scargill and co.