When Graham Stuart was elected chair of the education select committee, it was, in part, thanks to support from an unlikely source.
In 2010, for the first time in parliament's history, select committee chairs, instead of being party appointments, were elected by their fellow MPs. This meant that Stuart - one of four candidates for the position - required cross-party support.
"I found myself meeting (former Children's Secretary) Ed Balls in the bar, having spent the past three years trying everything I possibly could to trip him up, and asking for his support," he says."He smiled wryly at me as I recall, and said that if I was half as much of a pain in the neck to his successor (Michael Gove) as I had been to him (as a member of the children and families select committee), he would consider his support for me well justified.
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