LABOUR leader Keir Starmer has reshuffled his shadow cabinet after the party’s disappointing election performance.
Among the changes are the promotion of Rachel Reeves to shadow chancellor, while Anneliese Dodds, her predecessor in the role, becomes party chairman.
Former economist Reeves has added shadow chancellor to the long list of shadow roles she has held during her decade in Parliament.
First elected to represent Leeds West in 2010, within six months she was the shadow minister for pensions. After subsequent roles at shadowing in the Treasury and Department for Work and Pensions, Reeves assumed the role of shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster – opposite Michael Gove – when Keir became party leader.
Politics runs in the family, and Reeves is married to a former private secretary and speech writer of Gordon Brown.
Her younger sister, Ellie also has a seat in Parliament as the Labour MP for Lewisham West and Penge, and serves as the shadow Solicitor General.
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Before arriving in Westminster, Reeves worked as an economist at the Bank of England and the British Embassy in Washington DC.
MP Diane Abbott said Labour’s leadership tried to make deputy leader Angela Rayner “carry the can for the poor results at the weekend”.
“It does seem as if, certainly the people around him [Starmer], don’t understand how the party works,” the former shadow home secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“They tried to sack Angela Rayner in order to make her carry the can for the poor results at the weekend.
“They didn’t seem to realise that because she’s an elected deputy leader, you can fiddle around with her title, but you can’t sack her, she remains a senior person in the shadow cabinet.”
When asked if it was the view of deputy leader Ms Rayner that Sir Keir wanted to sack her, Abbott said: “Yes, that’s what all the briefing was about.
“It was a foolish thing to even think about and he has had to walk it back – you can’t sack an elected deputy leader.”
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Labour MP for Oxford East since June 2017, Dodds was an MEP for South East England for four years before taking her seat on the opposition benches.
A year after her election, she was made shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, before receiving her promotion to the shadow front bench in April last year.
A mother of two young children, 43-year-old Dodds’ media skills were put to the test just days into her role as shadow chancellor, when her daughter burst in during an interview with Sky News.
“I thought she was going to stay asleep, sorry… so embarrassing,” Dodds said when asked about the moment at the interview’s close.
“She’s thankfully under the chair now.”
Dodds has now been relegated to the role of party chairman and chair of Labour Policy Review.
Before politics, Aberdeen-born Dodds worked as an academic and it is thought her research focused on public policy and risk in different industries, sectors and nations.
Labour’s new chief whip is Sir Alan Campbell, who had served as the deputy chief whip since 2010.
Sir Alan, who has been the MP for Tynemouth in the north east of England since 1997, has not broken the Labour Party whip.
He is one of the current longest serving members of his party’s frontbench, having first been appointed to it in May 2005.
At the 2010 General Election, Sir Alan was one of the very few Labour MPs re-elected by an increased majority.
He was a teacher before becoming an MP.
Labour MP for Newcastle East for the past 37 years, Nick Brown has been demoted from his role as chief whip in the shadow cabinet.
Since becoming an MP in 1983 he served intermittently as the party’s chief whip alongside other cabinet roles under governments led by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and oppositions under Jeremy Corbyn and Sir Keir.
Brown is known to have a love for classical music and is a patron of Leeds Youth Opera, the only youth opera in the country run by volunteers.
Before entering politics, he worked as a legal adviser to trade union GMB in Newcastle upon Tyne.
Here's the full list of the new positions:
- Rachel Reeves has replaced Anneliese Dodds as shadow chancellor.
- Anneliese Dodds has replaced Angela Rayner as the party chair.
- Alan Campbell has replaced Nick Brown as shadow chief whip.
- Lucy Powell has replaced Thangam Debbonaire as shadow housing secretary.
- Thangam Debbonaire has replaced Valerie Vaz as shadow leader of the House of Commons.
- Wes Streeting’s role as shadow minister for schools has been changed to child poverty secretary.
- Angela Rayner, who is deputy leader of the Labour party, has become shadow first secretary, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (taking the role from Rachel Reeves) and shadow secretary for the future of work.
The following shadow ministers have kept their posts:
- Lisa Nandy – shadow foreign secretary
- Nick Thomas-Symonds – shadow home secretary
- David Lammy – shadow justice secretary
- John Healey – shadow defence secretary
- Jonathan Ashworth – shadow health and social care secretary
- Ed Miliband – shadow business, energy and industrial strategy secretary
- Emily Thornberry – shadow international trade secretary
- Jonathan Reynolds – shadow work and pensions secretary
- Kate Green – shadow education secretary
- Jo Stevens – shadow digital, culture, media and sport secretary
- Bridget Phillipson – shadow chief secretary to the Treasury
- Luke Pollard – shadow environment, food and rural affairs secretary
- Steve Reed – shadow communities and local government secretary
- Jim McMahon – shadow transport secretary
- Preet Kaur Gill – shadow international development secretary
- Louise Haigh – shadow Northern Ireland secretary
- Ian Murray – shadow Scotland secretary
- Nia Griffith – shadow Wales secretary
- Marsha de Cordova – shadow women and equalities secretary
- Lord Falconer – shadow attorney general
- Baroness Angela Smith – shadow leader of the House of Lords
- Lord McAvoy – Lords’ Opposition chief Whip
- Rosena Allin-Khan – shadow minister for mental health
- Cat Smith – shadow minister for young people and democracy
- Andy McDonald – shadow employment rights and protections secretary
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