Appointing a new Shadow Cabinet: How did Jeremy Corbyn do?

One job – appointing a new Shadow Cabinet – was actually four very delicate tasks.  Jeremy Corbyn had to – first and foremost – ensure that the best people were in the most appropriate positions.  He also had to follow through on what he had promised in terms of a Shadow Cabinet of all the talents, reflecting the broad church of the party.  He had to ensure that the people who had given him his extraordinary mandate would be satisfied that he would deliver on his promises and that he would not let them down.  And he had to signal that he was doing politics differently.

These were difficult tasks indeed, sometimes in conflict with one another, and made trickier still by the decisions of some senior figures not to serve.  So, how has he done so far?

Reflecting the broad church:

This is the broadest-based Shadow Cabinet during my membership of the Labour Party, in political terms. Blair had some Campaign Group people in his Shadow Cabinets and first Cabinet (back in the days when they were elected) but to include John McDonnell and Lord Falconer in the same Shadow Cabinet shows that Corbyn has followed through on that commitment in quite an impressive way.  It could, of course, have been an even broader group.  Jeremy very publicly invited Liz Kendall to join the Shadow Cabinet during the hustings. He has supporters of rival leadership campaigns in high positions, including Andy Burnham himself as Shadow Home Secretary. Indeed, while much has been made of John McDonnell’s appointment, the absence of left-wing allies in senior positions is probably more notable. Newspapers speculating on potential Shadow Cabinets were always significantly to the left of this one.

Because some of the more high-profile possible appointments to his right were taken out of his hands by resignations and refusals, I would give Jeremy 9 out of 10 for this.

Fulfilling his mandate:

The extent of Jeremy Corbyn’s victory was extraordinary.  People voted for him for a range of reasons, but clearly the alternative policy proposals – especially economic policy – were key to this.  He was also voted for because people trusted him.  Jeremy had to appoint a key ally who shared a fully anti-austerity, anti-cuts agenda to the position of Shadow Chancellor, otherwise he would be seen as not following through on what he had promised and not fulfilling his mandate. John McDonnell is Jeremy’s closest ally in parliament, was his agent and has been at the forefront of arguing the anti-austerity case.  In many ways he was the obvious choice.  In other areas we are yet to see to what extent the new appointees will run with the ideas Jeremy explored in the leadership campaign.  I was particularly excited by the idea of a National Education Service.  Will Lucy Powell and Angela Eagle take this idea on and develop it?  I hope so.  But Jeremy always said that the election was not about one person but about a movement, so it is important that other people’s ideas are embraced.  Personally, I’m very happy with that, but I’m sure there are those in the 59% who might be disappointed that more key positions are not filled by key figures from the campaign.

As such I think this one might be 7 out of 10.

Doing politics differently

There are many different ways to “do politics differently” but I guess the things to look out for would be the diversity of the front bench and anything new and innovative on offer.  There were clear concerns about that last night when the traditional “great offices of states” were all shadowed by straight, white men.  Whatever we might say about the “comms” the final Shadow Cabinet seems to tick a lot of the right boxes. We have a Shadow Cabinet with more women than men.  Absolutely key roles for this Labour shadow team, like Health and Education, Energy, Environment, Defence and Transport are all women.  We have new roles in the team like shadow minister for mental health.  Some of the newcomers to the party may worry about some of the “same old faces” but overall this is a promising start. 8 out of 10

The right people

I’m prepared to go with Jeremy’s judgement on this after his thumping win, but I would certainly say that it is a very strong team.  I’ve always been a great admirer of John McDonnell having backed his past leadership bids; Hilary Benn has been my favourite shadow minister for a long time; Burnham has been the most popular shadow minister on LabourList in every survey; right across the portfolios I’m seeing strong names who have already performed well for Labour in government and opposition, along with some excellent new faces.  

There are people from the new intake, who were integral to Jeremy’s campaign, who I was hoping to see among the names, but their time will come and I’m sure they will have an exciting role to play now.  Clearly the fact that not all “big beasts” were prepared to get on board had an impact, but this is an impressive looking team. 8 out of 10

32/40 (80%) So that’s an A, although I hope areas for improvement are noted!