Reshuffle rumours hang over shadow Cabinet
By politics.co.uk staff
Rumours of a shadow Cabinet reshuffle are continuing to overshadow Labour’s party conference in Liverpool.
The move is possible after the Labour party changed its shadow Cabinet appointment rules.
Until Sunday they were elected, but now the leader has the power to pick his own frontbench team.
Shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan, whose criticism of Labour ministers’ overenthusiasm for custodial sentences led to a clash with shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper, is among those facing the axe, the Sun newspaper reported.
And shadow Scottish secretary Ann McKechin is facing pressure for her failure to take the fight to the SNP government in Edinburgh, according to the Scotsman newspaper.
Among the replacements could be former lord chancellor Charlie Falconer, former shadow chancellor Alan Johnson and shadow pensions minister Rachel Reeves, the Independent reported.
Former deputy prime minister John Prescott stoked rumours of a reshuffle at the weekend by criticising the shadow Cabinet for failing to “get up and fight”.
“There are some people in there who are undoubtedly not carrying their weight. They’re not even campaigning,” he told the Today programme.
“This is a Tory government that’s doing quite frankly some outrageous things and we haven’t had many words of protest. Ed, you’re the leader, get a shadow Cabinet who’ll do that.”
Labour website LabourList said its readers ranked Ms Cooper as the most popular of Mr Miliband’s team, with shadow chancellor Ed Balls, shadow education secretary Andy Burnham, shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander and shadow international development secretary Harriet Harman all well-liked.
The bottom five shadow Cabinet members were Ms McKechin, shadow Northern Ireland secretary Shaun Woodward, shadow energy and climate change secretary Meg Hillier, shadow leader of the House Rosie Winterton and shadow environment secretary Mary Creagh.
