BRITAIN: Alan Johnson was appointed education secretary in May this year, having previously been secretary of state for trade and industry.
Before that he served at the department of work and pensions and the department of education, where he was minister of state for higher education.
A scholarship boy who left school at 15 to become a shelf stacker at Tesco, the young Alan Johnson had a poor childhood in London.
His father left the family when he was eight and the young Alan was effectively orphaned when his mother died four years later, leaving him to be brought up by his 15-year-old sister. He married his first wife at the age of 17 and was a father of three before most of his student contemporaries had graduated.
Now married again to Laura, with whom he has a son, Mr Johnson worked as a postman for 18 years before rising through the ranks to become general secretary of the Communication Workers Union.
Tony Blair's "favourite trade union leader", Mr Johnson was the first former union boss to reach the cabinet for years. A leading advocate of electoral reform, he has supported extending Labour's organisation to Northern Ireland.
In a recent profile, Lord (Roy) Hattersley said high on the list of Mr Johnson's numerous talents was the composure with which he walked through the minefield of New Labour policies: "It is a gift which has survived what sometimes seems his reckless disregard for the dangers of speaking his mind. That is because the recklessness is carefully calculated."
Mr Johnson admits Labour is "not a dispute-free zone".
But he insists that its "determination to eradicate poverty is the glue which holds us together: connecting our past with our future; our ideological and pragmatic wings; distilling old Labour and new labour into real Labour".