When Tony Blair became Prime Minister in 1997 - the first MP from a North-East constituency do so since the 1930s - there was much talk around Whitehall of a "North-East Mafia" running the country. In a sense it was understandable, given that Mr Blair's first Government line-up contained no fewer than 13 MPs from the region. Within 48 hours it was down to 12, after Bishop Auckland MP Derek Foster decided that being Number Three at the Cabinet Office - below Peter Mandelson - was not his cup of cocoa. But the North-East could still boast three Cabinet members in Mo Mowlam, David Clark and Chief Whip Nick Brown as well as a clutch of up-and-coming Ministers just outside the top rank. Over the ensuing years, the fortunes of the so-called "Mafia" ebbed and flowed, with some faring decidedly better than others. Dr Clark was first to go in July 1998, the victim of a Downing Street-inspired smear campaign exposed by this newspaper, at the same time as Newcastle East MP Mr Brown was shunted sideways to become Agriculture Minister. Former Hartlepool MP Mr Mandelson came and went - twice - while the then Redcar MP Dr Mowlam's fortunes went into a tailspin after it became clear she was more popular than the Prime Minister. But by the beginning of the second term the "Mafia" appeared to have reasserted itself, with Stephen Byers, Alan Milburn and Hilary Armstrong all by then key members of Mr Blair's team. For a while, the jinx returned, with North Tyneside MP Mr Byers forced out of office in 2002 as a consequence of his failure to sack disgraced adviser Jo "bury bad news" Moore. And when Darlington MP Mr Milburn stood down a year later to spend more time with his family, it left the North-East with just two Cabinet members. Latterly, though, with Mr Milburn's return to Government last September, there has been new talk of an "A68 Axis" with regional politicians holding many of the key levers of power. They include South Shields MP David Miliband, Mr Milburn's deputy at the Cabinet Office, and Houghton and Washington MP Fraser Kemp, his deputy in the General Election campaign team. What all this means is that it is almost certain that, if Labour is re-elected in May, the region's representation in the upper reaches of Government will again increase. In this regard, the most fascinating question concerns the fate of Mr Byers, who many are now tipping for a Cabinet comeback following what has been a lengthy political rehabilitation. For some time after his enforced resignation, Mr Byers was telling friends in all apparent sincerity that he had no interest in becoming a Minister again, and I sense that some of this ambivalence persists. But Mr Blair still rates him highly, and it is reasonably clear that a Cabinet job is his for the asking - if he wants it. If Mr Byers does decide to come back, it is also becoming reasonably clear that the most likely berth for him is the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Margaret Beckett, one of the Cabinet's few remaining Brownites, is living on borrowed political time and Mr Byers' newly-acquired but apparently genuine interest in global warming makes him a natural fit for the post. My own view of the matter is that Mr Byers - whose political failings were essentially misjudgments rather than misdemeanours - has done his time and deserves a second chance. Once regarded as the walking embodiment of New Labour spin, he now seems to me to be a much more thoughtful politician - and probably all the more effective for it. But either way, Mr Byers is unlikely to be the only North-East politician figuring in the post-election reshuffle in the event of a third Labour term. Mr Miliband, unlucky to lose out to Ruth Kelly for the Education job in December, is now overdue a Cabinet promotion and may well slot in at Work and Pensions if the hugely impressive Alan Johnson moves up. Meanwhile, Mr Milburn is said to be undecided about whether to make his own comeback permanent, although if Labour wins big, a correspondingly big job will be his for the asking. There might even be a move for Durham North West MP Ms Armstrong - possibly to the job of Northern Ireland Secretary if Paul Murphy stands down following his serious illness last year. But enjoyable though it always is to speculate on who's up and who's down among the ranks of the region's MPs, the more important question is what it all means for the rest of us. Over the past eight years, a feeling has persisted within the North-East that having large numbers of MPs in the senior reaches of Government has had little benefit for the region. That is almost certainly an over-simplification - for instance Mr Byers when he was Transport and Regions Secretary and Mr Milburn when he was Health Secretary both quietly sought to advance the region's interests. But at times the perception of a North-East Mafia has played to the detriment of the region - leading Ministers to be over-sensitive to accusations of preferential treatment. Latterly, there have been fresh signs that the Government might be standing up and taking notice of the region's problems, for instance with the publication of a new plan to close the North-South divide by 2021. It could, however, just be because there's an election coming, and Labour is worried that its traditional supporters in the region might stay at home en masse. Either way, the future direction of regional policy will depend less on personalities, and more on what political direction the Labour Party will take when Mr Blair finally stands down. Until then, we shouldn't necessarily expect the "A68 Axis" to provide the road to regional prosperity. | 
