Victorious Lucy Powell has a resonant message – and the PM would be wise to listen to it

After a disastrous byelection in Wales, Labour's new deputy leader should not be frozen out by Starmer

- Andrew Rawnsley

Expressing disappointment with his lack of influence, John Nance Garner, US vice-president under Franklin Roosevelt, groaned that the position "isn't worth a pitcher of warm spit".

Some regard the post of Labour deputy leader as of even less value. Especially as it doesn’t even come with the deputy prime ministership attached. Sir Keir Starmer has already bestowed that bauble on David Lammy as a consolatory sop to soften his removal from the Foreign Office. The Labour leader has further crimped the role of deputy by appointing a party chair. “They've given all the jobs away,” remarks one senior Labour MP.

Lucy Powell secures an ex-officio seat on the party's National Executive committee and what she makes of the rest of the role comes down to how much energy and flair she puts into it, and what she is allowed to make of it by a leadership which very obviously preferred Bridget Phillipson. The benedictions of Number 10 were a curse on the education secretary. Sir Keir probably doomed her campaign the moment it became known that she was his favoured candidate. Being projected as the loyalist was not a tonic for her chances, but poison to them.

Ms Powell’s victory, announced yesterday morning at a low-key event at Labour HQ from which the media was excluded, is bound to be seen as a rebuke to an already weakened prime minister by his own party.