Despite an ill-fated attempt by the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs to re-instate Rebecca Long Bailey, Starmer has no intention to. Instead Guido is told a new Shadow Education Secretary will be chosen in days. Here are the runners and riders…

• Emma Hardy – Currently a Shadow Education Minister, Hardy has been MP for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle since 2017. Before then she had worked as a primary school teacher but quit to work for the NUT. Her dad was even head teacher at her primary school. She’s also handily Starmer’s former PPS back when he was Shadow Brexit Secretary. Would fit right in…
• Toby Perkins – Shadow Minister for Apprenticeships and Lifelong Learning and Chesterfield MP since 2010. State educated. A member of Labour Friends of Israel, his sekectin would really annoy the Corbynistas. Although he is male so would shift the ShadCab gender balance awry…
• Tulip Siddiq – Privately educated at The Royal School, Hampstead, Sidiq is now Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years. She’ll know the brief…
• Lucy Powell – Currently Shadow BEIS, Powell held the Shadow Education brief for nine months under Corbyn until she resigned in the failed coup against his leadership in June 2016. A standard bearer of the soft left…
• Liz Kendall – Currently a shadow social care minister, state educated, and standard bearer for Labour centrism. Blairite Kendall is who to pick if Starmer wants to go nuclear on the hard left…
• Lord Adonis – Proper Blairite with radical views on education that Michael Gove continued. If Starmer cares about education results and not union blessings the architect of the incredibly successful London Challenge and Tony Blair’s academies policy is the man. Imagine the faces of the Corbynistas…

One member it definitely won’t be is Dawn Butler, who currently sits on the Education Select Committee. A colleague of hers on the committee tells Guido she has now missed seven meetings in a row…