Alan Milburn is yet another politician cursed with being described as a future leader of his party and future prime minister.
A belligerent Blairite, he has since his promotion to health secretary in 1999 aggressively pursued a radical reform agenda within the NHS. His proposal to establish semi-autonomous foundation hospitals infuriated many backbench Labour MPs as well as the chancellor, Gordon Brown.
Despite his New Labour credentials, Mr Milburn's background was on the hard left - he was even rumoured to have been a member of Tariq Ali's International Marxist Group. Despite not completing his PhD in 18th century radicalism in the North East, he was bookish, co-running a leftwing bookshop, Days of Hope (nicknamed "Haze of Dope").
Born on January 27 1958, Mr Milburn was brought up single-handedly by his mother, a secretary in the local NHS, in the County Durham mining village of Tow Law, which has since been described as a "staunch Labour environment". He attended state school in Newcastle and Cleveland before going on to Lancaster University for his BA in history. His uncompleted PhD was begun at Newcastle University.
His modest background is said to have influenced his determination to reform the welfare state. "I grew up on a council housing estate in the middle of County Durham, and it isn't a very nice thing when you come home from school and find your door, which was red in the morning, has been painted yellow," he said. "My mum had not agreed for it to be painted yellow, someone from the council did."
Active in politics in the north-east, Mr Milburn edited a trade union-sponsored tabloid newspaper, Rostrum as well as chairing Trade Union CND. Milburn landed a job with the county council-backed trade union studies information unit, and masterminded the campaign to save shipbuilding in Sunderland.
Though unsuccessful, the experience of high-profile campaigning is understood to have convinced the young activist that he could make it in national politics. The long hair and the beard had already gone, and the search for a safe seat was soon to begin.
Mr Milburn landed the seat of Darlington in 1992 and soon became a well-known backbencher. With his office-mate Stephen Byers, he repeatedly embarrassed the then Conservative government with a string of probing parliamentary questions; the answers to which were inevitably countered by reams of press releases. His success in generating media attention meant he was marked out as a high-flyer virtually from the moment Tony Blair took over the Labour leadership in 1994.
Once Labour took office in 1997, Mr Milburn was appointed a junior health minister in charge of promoting private finance initiative (PFI) projects to build new hospitals with the controversial public-private partnerships. In 1998, he joined the cabinet as chief secretary to the Treasury, working under his future rival, Gordon Brown. A year later he succeeded Frank Dobson as health secretary.
His vision of the 21st century NHS, involving increased involvement for private contractors and greater freedoms for local managers, chimed very closely with the ideas of the prime minister himself. Mr Milburn's commitment to NHS reforms - including PFI and foundation hospitals - made him a controversial figure on the left of the party, and he clashed over pay with consultants, who rejected new contracts he offered them.
Mr Milburn's family life has not always been so happy, he split with his first wife, Mo O'Tool, who is now an MEP.
He is now however happily settled with psychiatrist partner Dr Ruth Briel, with whom he has two sons. Domestic bliss has now, it seems, put an end to his political ascent.
