Did Bridget Phillipson overstep the mark in today’s deputy leadership hustings? That’s the question MPs and delegates are asking here in Liverpool after the Education Secretary said the election was a choice between her “or you can choose division and disunity that fills the pages of the right-wing papers and puts us back on the road to opposition.”
It was the only moment of open hostility between Phillipson and her rival Lucy Powell in an otherwise genteel proceeding (so much so that there was a ban on clapping). And the comment was a jolt to Powell supporting MPs and delegates from CLPs that have nominated her. Said an MP ally of Powell: “It was too far. It was a misjudgment. It’s pissed a lot of people off.”
While the two camps have kept things civil, there was already disquiet in Powell’s campaign yesterday when the Prime Minister used his speech to name check Phillipson, the only Cabinet minister who got such treatment. There is a strict ban on open campaigning for the deputy leadership within the conference zone, outside today’s party-organised hustings. Powell’s camp say the PM’s remarks broke the spirit of those rules. While the polling we have suggests Powell will win this race, Phillipson is not going down without a fight.
Phillipson’s supporters have stood by her remarks. Luke Akehurst MP told the NS: “The framing of Lucy’s campaign, even if it hasn’t come from her as a candidate, has been about putting internal pressure on the PM to change the direction of the Government. If you choose to appeal for votes to the Left of the party like that, you can’t really complain when the other candidate says they are offering a different approach that is about unity and teamwork.”
Another MP said: “I didn’t see Bridget go beyond the pale at all with her remarks. I’m backing Bridget to give one of our most effective ministers a further platform to go out and fight against Reform. We’ve seen this week that throwing stones can hurt the party – and hurt exactly the people that we’re in government to change the country for.”
Her pitch was that she is one of the most effective ministers in government, and her refrain throughout today’s event was “free breakfast clubs”. Her team believe that her expansion of free school meals, school-based nurseries, bringing back Sure Start and rolling out breakfast clubs are her ace card in this election. She took every opportunity to talk about them. She also said she is “determined to tackle child poverty,” a nod to the expected lifting of the two-child benefit cap which she called for early in this race.
Powell’s pitch is that she will be a “full time” deputy, a dig at Phillipson who already has a cabinet job, and that she would shore up Labour’s left flank. “We need to get the politics of this right so we’re not losing votes on all sides,” she said of the government’s current positioning. She repeated a claim that in her former role as leader of the Commons she was “the shop steward, effectively, for the back benches over the past year,” (a picture not everyone in the PLP recognises).
Voting doesn’t open until next week and the results won’t be in until next week. And so this conference ends on an appropriately inconclusive note, tinged with the bitterness and uncertainty that now hangs over this party. See you next year!
[Further reading: The delusional joy of Labour conference]
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