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Hello. To claim this offer now, terms apply. Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast.

I'm Oscar Brinson, and I'm joined today by James Heel and the Sunday Times' is Gabriel Pogrant.

Now, we thought when we organised this podcast that there would just be the newly announced deputy leader to discuss, but it appears that things come in threes. We've instead also have the

evidence that the PMA of lied to Parliament over the China spy case and the collapse of it,

and there is also a manhunt underway to recapture a dangerous criminal released by mistake.

James, we should probably start on the new Labour deputy leader,

announced this morning as Lucy Powell. Who exactly is she? And was this a surprise?

On the latter point, no, this wasn't a surprise. I think the only real question was about

margin of victory. And I think actually I've had some texts from people in Labour thinking

that it would have been closer to sort of 6040 than it was

54-46, which is the final result.

Who is she?

Well, Oscar, I think the most pertinent fact is that she was the only cabinet minister successfully sacked from government by Keir Stama last month.

And just seven weeks later, she's back.

And that speaks to the big question that's been hanging over this race, which is, what do the Labour membership and the affiliates think of Kier-Starmer? And the answer is not that much at the moment. His stock is fairly low. As fact there's only 16.6% turnout is testament to the sense of dissatisfaction and discontent among the wider Labour movement. It's important to note, of course, that they refuse to release the Labour membership figures. This is also those who get a vote by identity of their union relationship. So I think that overall, she's going to be potentially a thorn on the side of number 10. I think that the question will be how much of the role she's going to have because, you know, the devil make work for idle hands. And one wonders, having a deputy labor leadership, potentially outside the the tent might be worse than having one inside and in nangerina's replacement i think they've

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