Keir Starmer never intended for Rebecca Long-Bailey to play a prominent role in his Shadow Cabinet. Her 135,000 votes in the leadership election meant she couldn’t be excluded from high office entirely — not, at least, after a campaign in which he had promised to stick by Jeremy Corbyn’s policies and preached a message of unity. But nor was she going to be allowed to continue her work on Labour’s Green New Deal. The Great Offices of State were clearly out of the question.

And so they settled on shadow education secretary, where Long-Bailey’s close friend Angela Rayner could give her a steer. The brief was calculated to be significant enough to appease the Left, but far enough from the leadership’s priorities to keep the Shadow Cabinet’s highest-ranking socialist relatively quiet. After all, the word “education” hadn’t even appeared in Starmer’s famous ten pledges during the election.

But even the most forensic political operation couldn’t have foreseen the emergence of a global pandemic. The COVID-19 crisis forced Starmer and his team to adapt — and had the unhappy consequence of elevating the importance of the education brief. Starmer resisted this initially, making the decision to leave Long-Bailey out of his COVID-19 response committee. Soon, however, conditions imposed themselves.