Sir Keir Starmer showed his ruthless streak today as he snubbed Emily Thornberry from his top team in one of his first acts as Prime Minister.
Ms Thornberry was expected to be announced as part of the premier’s Cabinet having served as the shadow attorney general since 2021 when Labour was in opposition.
But she was brutally brushed aside in favour of Richard Hermer KC who has been given a peerage to take on the role.
It will be a bitter pill for Ms Thornberry to swallow with herself a former criminal barrister and having been in Sir Keir’s shadow cabinet in one guise or another since he became party leader in 2020.
Mr Hermer is a high-profile human rights lawyer from Matrix Chambers, said to command the respect of others at the bar.
Ms Thornberry was also previously shadow attorney general from 2011 until 2014 during Ed Miliband’s tenure but was sacked for sneering at a family home draped with England flags.
Sir Keir Starmer showed his ruthless streak today as he snubbed Emily Thornberry from his top team in one of his first acts as Prime Minister
Ms Thornberry was expected to be announced as part of the premier’s Cabinet having served as the shadow attorney general since 2021
Other eyebrow-raising moves saw the boss of key-cutting and shoe-repairing firm Timpson, James Timpson, appointed as new prisons minister.
The firm has employed ex-offenders since 2008 to give them another chance and they make up 10 per cent of its workforce.
And Sir Patrick Vallance, who became a household name as he often joined the televised briefings during Covid, was made science minister.
He was nicknamed ‘Dr Doom’ in the pandemic thanks to his leadership of the cautious, lockdown-advocating Sage committee.
Both were made peers in order to take up their roles.
Sir Keir’s appointments began shortly after 3pm with his deputy Angela Rayner striding up Downing Street in a striking green power suit.
Her appointment as Deputy Prime Minister and Levelling Up Secretary set the tone for what could be the most working-class Cabinet in history.
It will be a bitter pill for Ms Thornberry to swallow having been in Sir Keir’s shadow cabinet in one guise or another since he became party leader in 2020
More than three-quarters of the Prime Minister’s top team is also likely to be state-educated when it is finalised, with only a handful having attended fee-paying schools.
In his first act in No 10, Sir Keir appointed ministers who grew up in working-class households, the first female Chancellor and the first Foreign Secretary descended from slaves.
Former shadow Cabinet minister Jonathan Ashworth – who had been due to play a key role in government before he surprisingly lost his seat – said it ‘could possibly be the most working-class Cabinet of all time’.
Sir Keir has made much of being the son of a toolmaker and a nurse who once had the phone cut off because his family couldn’t afford the bills when he was younger.
Ms Rayner grew up in a council house and left school with no qualifications and pregnant at the age of 16.
Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson was brought up on benefits by her single mother and says she was bullied at school for being poor.
She was brutally brushed aside in favour of Richard Hermer KC (pictured) who has been given a peerage to take on the role
Health Secretary Wes Streeting was raised on a council estate in London’s East End and his relatives associated with the Kray twins.
The Cabinet is also diverse, with Rachel Reeves becoming the first female Chancellor since the creation of the role 800 years ago.
In a speech to Treasury officials yesterday, she said: ‘To every young woman and girl watching this, let today show that there should be no ceilings on your ambitions, your hopes or your dreams.
‘But there is a deeper responsibility too: To women whose work is too often undervalued, who have borne the brunt of inequality and whose lives and interests are too often excluded from economic policymaking. Together, we are going to change that.’
However, one of her first jobs may be the reconfiguration of the Chancellor’s private Edwardian bathroom – which comes with its own urinal.
Asked about it recently in The Spectator, she said her approach would be about ‘smashing glass ceilings and urinals’.