BRIGHT young Brownites have replaced the so-called "Blair babes" in the ones-towatch stakes as speculation intensifies over when, rather than if, Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair.

A coterie of the chancellor's most trusted advisers, with a strong Scottish flavour, has left the Treasury to attempt to become Labour MPs. Now that the prime minister has confirmed he does not intend to stand for a fourth term, the chancellor has fixed his sights on life after Mr Blair's premiership. Having more of his own people in safe seats will not only shore up parliamentary backing for Mr Brown's leadership campaign, it will also give the chancellor a trusted support base from which to pick his cabinet.

Ed Balls, Mr Brown's former chief economic adviser, is Labour candidate for the safe seat of Normanton in West Yorkshire. Two lesser known Treasury aides - Ed Miliband, Mr Brown's economic adviser, and Ian Austin, his press secretary, who has worked for the party in Scotland - will further strengthen the chancellor's future hand.

Completing the quartet is Pat McFadden, a highly regarded Downing Street adviser.

Despite the notoriously tempestuous relationship between Nos 10 and 11 Downing Street, Mr McFadden has managed to remain above the fray.

Born in Paisley and raised in Cathcart, Glasgow, Mr McFadden's first brush with Labour was as a student at Edinburgh University. In 1987, he helped Nigel Griffith, the Brownite small business minister, to win his Edinburgh South seat.

A year later, Mr McFadden moved to London, where he worked for Donald Dewar, then shadow Scottish secretary.

In 1993, he moved to the office of John Smith, the late Labour leader, where he became one of the key players in delivering one-member-one-vote.

When Mr Smith died, Mr McFadden was kept on by Mr Blair. Just over two years ago, he became the prime minister's political secretary, a post paid for by the party, and given the task of bridging the gap between Labour and No10.

Now Mr McFadden, whose father was a labourer and whose mother worked at a children's home in Castlemilk, has been chosen as the Labour candidate for the safe seat of Wolverhampton South-East.

The softly spoken Scot makes no attempt to disguise he has no links with the area, but local activists insist the constituency "needed someone like him" who could punch above their weight at Westminster.

He has already been out for a campaign drink with Mr Austin, who has secured a Labour nomination just 20 minutes away in Dudley North.

Unlike Mr McFadden, Mr Austin was born and bred in his constituency.