BOB WAREING has earned a reputation for being one of the most rebellious Labour MPs of all time.
In 2004 he was named as one of the six top rebels under Tony Blair after defying the Government on no fewer than 64 occasions in the previous three years.
Mr Wareing, 78, is a veteran of the Labour party and seen as distinctly "Old Labour". He has spent his career mainly on the back benches.
He has voted against the Government on a whole raft of issues including the war in Iraq and student top-up fees.
He also refused to ban the smacking of children, fresh curbs on asylum seekers and the lifting of restrictions on casinos.
Since 1997 he has voted against the Government more than 200 times. Between June 2001 and April 2005 he voted 121 times against the whip, which accounts for 11.7% of his votes.
He is known locally for being a tireless campaigner for his constituents.
As a former adult education lecturer he was elected to the Commons in 1983 and served as a whip throughout the 1987 Parliament.
Mr Wareing has taken a strong interest in international affairs.
He was one of the few Labour MPs to oppose military action in Kosovo.
The man who sent Michael Portillo packing
STEPHEN TWIGG is best known for toppling former Conservative minister Michael Portillo in Labour’s 1997 landslide election victory.
After taking the Enfield South seat, in London, he quickly rose through the ranks and was schools’ minister when he lost the seat in the 2005 general election.
Mr Twigg is openly gay and has a clean-cut image but he blotted his copy book in December, 2005, when he was arrested for being drunk and given a £50 fixed penalty notice.
At the time, he said he had been to a Christmas party where "rather a lot of wine was consumed". He also said he felt like "an idiot" and very much regretted it.
Mr Twigg, 40, was educated at Southgate school, North London and read politics, philosophy and economics at Balliol College, Oxford.
In 1990, he was elected president of the National Union of Students and in 1992 was elected as a councillor in the London Borough of Islington, becoming chief whip in 1994.
He is currently the chairman of the Blairite think tank, Progress.
During his Parliamentary career, he held the position of deputy leader of the Commons from 2001 to 2002. He was made an education minister by Tony Blair.
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