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Can Keir Starmer Bounce Back From A Batley And Spen By-Election Loss?
Through the summer to Brighton s party conference and beyond, Labour s leader has a crucial three months to reset his leadership.
Christopher Furlong via Getty Images
On the very day that Matt Hancock was fighting to save his political career in Westminster, Labour’s battle to hang onto one of its own parliamentary seats was being played out nearly 200 miles north in West Yorkshire.
Amid ugly, unsettling scenes outside a mosque in Batley as worshippers left Friday prayers, the party’s candidate Kim Leadbeater was being harangued and chased by an anti-gay rights activist. The man, who had urged people to vote for George Galloway, was from Birmingham.
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Jenny Chapman pictured with Keir Starmer ahead of the Labour leader’s keynote speech at the party’s online conference in 2020 (Getty)
It’s a reasonable guess that few people – even counting those with some interest in politics – know who Jenny Chapman is. Or was, rather, as she is being moved from her role as “director of politics” in the leader of the opposition’s office to one of a much more conventional, policy-oriented character, as the shadow Brexit minister to Lord (David) Frost.
Chapman has already been elevated to the peerage in readiness, and it’s obviously an important role, consistent with Sir Keir Starmer’s estimation of her. An MP since 2010, she served as Starmer’s junior Brexit shadow minister in the Corbyn years, despite attempts to depose Corbyn and more or less open contempt towards the left. She lost her Darlington seat in the 2019 general election. She was a natural choice to run Starmer’s leadershi