'It was a shock' Thornberry embraces new committee role after losing frontbench job

Emily Thornberry has never been afraid to speak her mind, even if doing so sometimes lands her in trouble.

- Kiran Stacey

Emily Thornberry has never been afraid to speak her mind, even if doing so sometimes lands her in trouble. As the only frontbencher to have been dropped from Keir Starmer's ministerial team when Labour entered government, the MP for Islington South and Finsbury is beginning a new chapter in her political career, as the head of the foreign affairs select committee.

But as she does so, Thornberry, 64, has an outspoken warning for her younger colleagues, some of whom were elevated to ministerial level immediately after being elected for the first time. "We have some amazingly experienced and talented new ministers who have not been MPs before," she tells the Guardian from her office overlooking the Thames. "The last thing I want - and maybe I'll be proved wrong - I don't want them to be set up to fail. Hopefully I've got it wrong, but I think it would make their life much easier if they had been MPs for a while first, before they became ministers."