Lucy Powell is back. As Steerpike reported this morning, Jeremy Corbyn has appointed Ed Miliband’s blunder-prone deputy campaign chief as Labour’s shadow education secretary. The Labour MP kick started her first day in her new role with a return to old form. Taking part in an interview on BBC News, Powell spoke about how the party needed to rebuild their economic credibility.
First, however, she addressed the point Mr S drew attention to earlier: that she had never met Corbyn before he offered her the shadow cabinet job:
‘It is a very new relationship. It was the first time I’d spoken to him directly. We had a good conversation, and he offered me the job. It’s a policy area that I’m absolutely passionate about.’
When pressed by Emily Maitlis as to whether she had different views to Corbyn when it came to private schools and their charitable status, Powell responded: ‘Jeremy and I, we hardly know each other’. As for her hopes for the next election, Powell said Labour lost the last election as they lacked economic credibility, and that this credibility was what they needed to rebuild ahead of the next election:
‘We’re five years away from the next election, I doubt much has changed in terms of the public perceptions of the Labour party and the choices that they made at the last election and that is a huge challenge for us going forward to the next election to rebuild our economic credibility.’
Has nobody told her who Corbyn has appointed as shadow chancellor?
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