Lucy Powell has won Labour’s deputy leadership election, beating her rival Bridget Phillipson. The result was announced this morning after a low-key, five-week contest. Having led in each of the various membership polls, Powell duly triumphed with 54 per cent of the vote to Phillipson’s 46 per cent. A worryingly low turnout of just 16 per cent of the 970,000 eligible Labour members and affiliate voters speaks to the level of discontent and dissatisfaction among the party faithful.

In her victory speech, Powell delivered a textbook mainstream soft left script. ‘My politics have always been shaped as a proud Mancunian’, she said ‘and Labour through and through’. Setting out her ‘diagnosis’ of the nation’s ills, she attacked ‘Farage and his ilk’ for blaming immigrants. Instead, she argued, ‘

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