Lucy powell

Michael Gove – We want to see more people back on the shop floor It was Michael Gove’s turn to lead the government’s broadcast rounds this morning. Sophy Ridge began by seeking clarification from the Cabinet Office Minister about the government’s message on returning to the workplace: MG: We want to see more people back at work, on the shop floor, in the office, wherever they can be. Of course, in some cases it’s appropriate and convenient for some people to work from home, but we want to make sure that… the economic engines of this country are fired up again. Wearing face masks while shopping is ‘good manners’ Andrew

Oh dear. After Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, Lucy Powell was labelled a mean girl thanks to her decision to take to social media and declare that she had never, ever met the man. Now the Labour MP is in the naughty corner once again. Only this time it’s the Labour sisterhood she’s managed to offend. After the former shadow education secretary wrote an op-ed about childcare, Angela Rayner — the current shadow education secretary — took to the female Labour MPs’ WhatsApp group to share her thoughts. Powell replied thanking Rayner for her insights, before firing off a few catty messages revealing how she really felt. Alas there was a snag. Although Powell

Haven’t had a chance to follow the day’s political events and interviews? Then don’t worry: here, in the first of a daily feature, we bring you the best of today’s audio clips in one place for you to listen to. Stuart Rose has been giving a series of interviews as the In campaign steps up its efforts to encourage the public to vote to stay in the EU in the upcoming referendum. On the Today programme this morning, he admitted to being a eurosceptic but said it was a ‘risk’ to leave the EU because the British public did not know what they would be getting: He had less success

Since Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour party, his main cheerleader Diane Abbott has never been far from his side. In fact, Abbott has even taken it upon herself to often fight Corbyn’s corner. This has involved warning unruly MPs about the size of his mandate, as well as having a heated argument with Jess Phillips during a meeting of the PLP, after the newly-elected Labour MP hit out at the lack of women in Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet. Since then, it’s been claimed that Abbott — who has earned herself the nickname Madame Mao as a result of her behaviour — has also played up during meetings of the

In the early hours of Monday, it dawned on Jeremy Corbyn that no women in his team would be shadowing the four Great Offices of State. ‘We are taking a fair amount of shit out there about women,’ his advisor Simon Fletcher was heard saying. ‘We need to do a Mandelson. Let’s make Angela shadow first minister of state. Like Mandelson was. She can cover PMQs.’ Of course, if you’re reading this, and you’re a deep-set Corbynista, I doubt you believe a word of it: it’s the testimony of Darren McCaffrey, Sky reporter, spawn of the evil Murdoch empire. Therein lies the central challenge of our polarised body politic. How can any

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

After the Queen’s Speech in May, a number of Labour MPs including Chuka Umunna and Rachel Reeves enjoyed a group trip to Nandos. Alas the invite didn’t manage to make its way to blunder-prone Lucy Powell who took to Twitter to awkwardly point this out. Now it seems Ed Miliband’s former deputy campaign chief has put her foot in it once again. Last night Powell engaged in some gentle bitching about Jeremy Corbyn’s lack of social interaction with her. After Miliband’s former political secretary Anna Yearley (who says she will be voting for Liz Kendall) tweeted that Corbyn’s bad attendance record at Parliamentary Labour Party meetings would make it interesting for him to chair one if elected, Powell

Last night’s Newsnight Labour leadership debate proved to be a rather dull affair with all four hopefuls failing to make a strong impression. While many were quick to suggest that this was down to lacklustre leadership candidates, party members have come up with a different reason the broadcast failed to impress. Step forward Laura Kuenssberg: Labour’s ‘attack dog‘ Michael Dugher — who is backing Andy Burnham for leader — appeared to point the finger of blame at the Newsnight presenter for her chairing of the debate. The shadow transport secretary, who previously worked closely with Labour spin doctor Damian McBride under Gordon Brown, took to Twitter to complain that ‘she never shut up’: The sentiment was shared

Mr S reported earlier on Lucy Powell’s blunder after she unwittingly seemed to contradict the message of the EdStone: ‘I don’t think anyone is suggesting that the fact that he’s carved them in stone means he’s absolutely not going to break them or anything like that.’ Miliband has now come to the defence of his beloved monument. During an interview with the BBC’s deputy political editor James Landale, he was asked whether Powell, the vice-chair of Labour’s general election campaign, had got the wrong take-away message from his 8ft 6 sculpture. To this, Miliband replied, ‘Well, I’m clear about it, yes.’ At least somebody is clear. listen to ‘Ed Miliband says Lucy Powell was wrong to

‘You aren’t listening to what I’m saying,’ said a rather rattled Lucy Powell, Labour’s election chief, whom the party put up for BBC Sunday Politics today. I suspect that, by now, she’ll have wished that we weren’t listening. Because in a commendable moment of candour, she admitted that the Labour Party intends to keep debt rising should it win power – and has no real deficit reduction strategy. Ms Powell dispensed with Ed Balls tricksy language and told it how it is. Here she is, talking to BBC Sunday Politics (11 mins in, after complaining about a ‘Paxo-style interview’). ‘Andrew Neil: You would borrow more, wouldn’t you? Andrew Neil: To bridge the deficit

With less than three months to go to the election, politics is pretty partisan at Westminster at the moment as PMQs today demonstrated. But there is one area where there is, despite the proximity of polling day, a bi-partisan consensus emerging: civil service reform. This morning, both Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, and his opposite number Lucy Powell, who is also in day to day charge of the Labour campaign, appeared at the conference of Govern Up, a new think tank on civil service reform headed up by the former Tory Minister Nick Herbert and the ex-Labour frontbencher John Healey. Now, the reason that both parties are so interested

How has Labour managed to make such a mess of its response to the leak of a document on dealing with Ukip that came out on Monday that it’s still having to talk about it on Friday? I’ve been baffled by the poor crisis comms this week – until I heard Lucy Powell, vice-chair of the party’s General Election campaign, trying to field questions on it today on the Daily Politics. Her tactics were to tell the interviewer that the origins of the report were ‘irrelevant’, an old but useless tactic of spinners that generally encourages the journalist to think the story even more relevant than they did when they started the

More fallout from the Labour Ukip leak reaches me. Some sources in the party remain amazed that it apparently never crossed the desk of Yvette Cooper, given her role in the Ukip strategy group. But there is also considerable amusement about an email, passed to Coffee House, that Lucy Powell sent out describing the briefing pack as ‘quick and dirty’. Some might be wishing material produced by HQ wouldn’t fit such a racy description. The row over the report is fading, but it seems to have increased some tensions between party frontbenchers. And those who produced the report itself aren’t in the best of moods either… Dear colleagues Further to discussions in

The post-Jim Murphy Labour reshuffle has arrived, and while it’s not particularly seismic, it still tells us some interesting things about Ed Miliband’s thinking. The Labour leader has replaced the former Shadow International Development Secretary with Mary Creagh, which means it can’t be described as a consolation prize (something development campaigners were wary of as they’d rather someone who wanted the job, thank you). Creagh has a reputation in her party for being formidably well-briefed (although she managed to disappoint regional newspapers recently), and was particularly impressive in her last role but one as Shadow Environment Secretary when the horse meat scandal broke. Anas Sarwar, who some had tipped as