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…
Despite having compèred a speech for Corbyn just the other day, Lucy Powell has proved she remains hostile to the Labour leader, saying on Politics Live that there’s “no love” for Corbyn on the doorstep. Her denouncement pales in comparison to Bishop Auckland’s Helen Goodman, who made a point to include this message on her leaflets:
Naughty of Goodman…
Labour MP Lucy Powell was heckled while addressing a “Say No to Antisemitism” rally in Manchester yesterday with chants of “Corbyn Out”. Powell stopped the crowd and told them she was “100%” on their side:
“You don’t need to heckle me, because I’m on your side. I’m on your side 100%.”
She is not the only one. When are Labour MPs going to do something about it?
“It’s absolutely the right thing to do” : @jessphillips reacts to the news @MrBrendanCox has stood down from the charities he founded in Jo Cox’s name pic.twitter.com/YOBABph1tD
— Peston on Sunday (@pestononsunday) February 18, 2018
Brendan Cox is “showing how he’s going to change” says Jess Phillips, while Lucy Powell says “good for” him for “reflecting”.
Good for @MrBrendanCox – reflecting and taking responsibility for past actions. Read his full statement not just the headlines. https://t.co/e2fbeC81jh
— Lucy Powell MP (@LucyMPowell) February 17, 2018
Compare and contrast with how they went after Toby Young over some tweets.
.@LucyMPowell says #JaredOMara should be suspended from @UKLabour while he’s investigated #AftertheNews pic.twitter.com/gffgOiyre2
— After The News (@AfterTheNewsITV) October 24, 2017
Pressure is now coming from within Labour to withdraw the whip. Lucy Powell told ITV’s After the News that O’Mara should be suspended while he is investigated.
And speaking at the Mile End Institute last night Lisa Nandy also called for him to go:
“We have quite clear rules in the Labour Party about discrimination and the process is very clear too, that people who have engaged in anti-Semitism or other forms of discriminatory behaviour are suspended while… their case is investigated. We have a very clear process in the Labour Party that in my view ought to be upheld… In this case, just as in previous cases, it’s absolutely clear: we suspend and we investigate and we make a decision.”
Wonder if he will still have the whip after Guido’s next revelations…
Handbags in the Shadow Cabinet as Lucy Powell slaps down Diane Abbott for mocking her voice. The incident happened at Labour’s infamous ShadCab meeting on Syria, where according to the Guardian “there was a spat between Diane Abbott and Lucy Powell”, where “Diane… mimicked Lucy’s accent”. Powell hit back on the Daily Politics:
“Not quite my accent. Diane has her own approach to these things. It usually loses her the room, as they say.”
More forthright colleagues would have told her to “f**k off“…
