There is one reason that Lucy Powell won the Labour deputy leadership election : she was the anti-Starmer candidate.

It is no disrespect to the new deputy leader to note that she has never had the star power of an Angela Rayner, Harriet Harman or John Prescott; nor did her year in the Cabinet make her a household name among anyone who is not an obsessive Whitehall-watcher.

But when Rayner was forced to quit last month, triggering the contest to replace her, Powell shrewdly saw there was an opportunity for a candidate who was both trusted by a critical mass of fellow MPs, and distant enough from Sir Keir Starmer to stand up to the increasingly unpopular leadership . New Feature

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Ironically, it was the Prime Minister himself who ensur

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