The glitter has been knocked off Ed Miliband’s rising star, Lucy Powell, after she approved a party document advising Labour candidates on how to defeat Ukip on the doorsteps in the forthcoming general election campaign.
The 33-page paper entitled ‘Campaigning against Ukip’ advises Labour candidates to focus on “moving the conversation on” from immigration if it is raised by voters on the doorstep.
This patently daft advice was just waiting to be leaked and, inevitably, it was - to the Daily Telegraph, which duly reported that an "incandescent" shadow cabinet had rounded on Miliband as he was forced to distance himself from the toxic document.
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Miliband - accidentally described as ‘Red Ed’ by John Prescott on this morning's Today programme - said the anti-Ukip strategy document had employed "not very well drafted language" while Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, said that the document was "wrong”. Both denied they had “signed off" on it before its release to dozens of MPs and hopeful candidates by Labour HQ.
Needless to say, there was a media hunt to find the culprit and the dogs of Westminster quickly tracked down the person responsible for signing it off - none other than Miliband’s strategy honcho, Lucy Powell.
It appears she has admitted privately to approving the document’s release – which suggests a worry degree of naivety from the woman who will be helping to direct Miliband’s general election campaign following her recent promotion to vice-chair of the Labour strategy team.
Aged 40, from a working-class background in Moss Side, Manchester, Powell studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford (just like Margaret Thatcher). She caught Miliband’s attention while working on the 1997 general election campaign at Labour’s Millbank headquarters.
She went on to lead Ed’s campaign to defeat his own brother David for the Labour leadership - proof she is not lacking in guts. After winning her own parliamentary seat – Manchester South - in the 2010 general election she became a powerful member of Miliband’s inner circle.
Today, she is the object of anger and ridicule. One Labour source told The Times: “Ed Miliband had appointed a group of MPs specifically to combat the threat from Ukip… Lucy Powell has just run roughshod all over that with this disastrous dossier.”
Powell certainly has made enemies in the Labour camp and one of them must have leaked the report knowing it would do her damage.
However, she’s clearly not the only one in the Labour Party to think it best “to move the conversation on” when it comes to immigration and the attractions of Ukip.
Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney and a London mayoral candidate, believes the Labour leader was wrong yesterday to make yet another speech on immigration.
Abbott tweeted: 'I despair. Ed Miliband gives 4th speech on immigration. Yet we CANNOT win the GE fighting on UKIP agenda.’ She linked it to her own article in The Guardian, saying: “We give the impression we're running scared of Ukip.”
