If, and when, Gordon Brown becomes Prime Minister, his close ally Ed Balls is the frontrunner to take the Finance Minister's place at the Treasury.
And that points to little change in economic policy-making in the years ahead.
Tony Blair has said he will not fight another election and many expect Mr Brown to succeed him within the next 18 months, and perhaps much sooner, as scandals and setbacks beset the ruling Labour party.
That would open up the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer for the first time since Labour came to power in 1997 and Mr Balls may offer the most seamless transition after more than nine years of Mr Brown calling the shots.
The 39-year-old only entered parliament in May 2005 and was made a Treasury Minister just two months ago.
But he started work for Brown as an adviser at 27 and is widely perceived as the architect of many of Labour's economic policies since 1997.
Few junior Ministers command as much clout as the Oxford and Harvard-educated Mr Balls - he can take credit for drawing up the plans which gave the Bank of England power to set interest rates and was instrumental in keeping Britain out of the euro.
Financial markets would probably react calmly to Mr Balls as British Finance Minister given his close association with Mr Brown, who has earned the City's grudging respect after nearly a decade of economic growth.
"He'd bring a wealth of experience. He has an extremely good knowledge of government and the workings of government. He is seriously well-qualified," said Alastair Newton, senior political analyst at investment bank Lehman Brothers.
"I couldn't see it as anything besides steady as she goes."
But Mr Balls may have to wait until after the next election, expected in 2009, to inherit the second top job in government.
Some predict another Brown ally, Trade and Industry Secretary Alastair Darling, aged 53, who has held a variety of cabinet posts, might be a safer bet as Chancellor in the short-term, especially if Mr Blair steps down quickly.
"Ed Balls might need a little more ministerial experience before taking on the Chancel-lor's role. He's been a policy adviser for some time but a politician for only a little while," said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec.
Dubbed the Chancellor's "mini-me" by opposition politicians, Mr Balls, a former Financial Times journalist, may suffer both from his relative youthfulness and from a lack of recognition outside the Westminster village.
On the other hand, Mr Blair and Mr Brown had no experience of government when they first took office after 18 years of Conservative rule.
Mr Balls has been actively involved with forming government policy for nearly a decade.
And Mr Balls' youth could actually be a strong point as Labour faces a rejuvenated Conservative party led by David Cameron, also aged 39. George Osborne, his Treasury spokesman and Brown's opposite number is just 35.
Mr Balls went to a feepaying school before reading philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.
He then studied at Harvard and like Mr Brown seems more in tune with economic thinking on that side of the Atlantic than that in many of Britain's European Union neighbours.
Indeed, it would be hard to imagine any differences in economic policymaking a Mr Balls chancellorship would involve.
As former Conservative deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine said of a complex Mr Brown statement on post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory: "It's not Brown's, its Balls."
