Keir Starmer reshuffles Labour’s shadow cabinet – with big promotion for Yvette Cooper

To try and press home his advantage, Sir Keir was on Monday carrying out a shake up of his top team with former Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper returning to the Shadow Cabinet in a senior role.

Cooper has been appointed shadow home secretary.

A poll by Opinium earlier this month showed the ruling Conservative Party had fallen behind Labour for the first time in a year, as the Prime Minister battled a rebellion from his own backbenchers over his handling of the Owen Paterson sleaze affair.

Since then Mr Johnson has been hit by further unrest over social care reforms and the HS2 rail project.

But Sir Keir’s second reshuffle inside a year risked being overshadowed by tensions with Labour’s Deputy Leader Angela Rayner who appeared to be caught off-guard by the timing of the move.

Delivering a speech at the Institute for Government think-tank on Monday morning, on Labour’s five point plan to shake up Parliamentary standards following the Paterson affair, Ms Rayner told journalists she was not aware of any reshuffle.

But Party officials have played down suggestions she was out of the loop, insisting that Ms Rayner had been briefed by Sir Keir prior to delivering her speech on standards.

Asked about reports of the reshuffle, Ms Rayner said: “I’ve been concentrating on the job that I’m doing.”

In the first major change, Jo Stevens confirmed she had been moved from her current role as Shadow Culture Secretary to replace Llanelli MP Nia Griffith as shadow Welsh Secretary.

“It’s been a privilege to closely work with hugely talented people in the DCMS sector, the fastest growing before the pandemic & one of the hardest hit,” she said on Twitter.