Will Lucy Powell’s win turn things around for Labour?

I’m leaning against a metal railing in a back street in South London on a Saturday morning.

I’m standing outside Labor Party headquarters and it’s the closest I’ll come to the announcement of the party’s new deputy leader.

This was a contest Labor did not want, and its outcome was shown so little that we reporters were not even allowed to watch it.

Luckily, after some back and forth, they let a few broadcast cameras in so we could watch outside, and so could you if you wanted.

Seven weeks ago the prime minister fired Lucy Powell from his cabinet.

Today he is deputy leader of the Labor Party.

Politics is a funny old business.

When Angela Rayner resigned, Sir Keir Starmer used the moment to make a very widespread reshuffle in his ministerial team.

The highest-profile loss? Powell.

He returned about a month later.

I did not return to government, but to a directly elected senior post within the party.

However, although this is not the outcome of this race that Sir Keir would have preferred, it is worth briefly considering the numbers in this election.

Although Powell was the favorite when there were two candidates left in this race and was the clear winner, it was not a landslide.

This was not a wholesale and overwhelming rejection of Bridget Phillipson, who was seen as a candidate closer to the prime minister as a cabinet minister.

After the result, we journalists were still loitering in the streets, waiting for hours for the winner, loser and prime minister to leave.

Then came the news that at least one of the reasons for this was that the prime minister and the new deputy leader of the Labor Party had met.

Maybe hedgehog diplomacy? Is it a bit spiky?

It was strange, at least up to a point, of course.

However, some’s expectations that Powell will be a mouthful or frequently disloyal in public are exaggerated.

After all, he was in government until last month, and he told me that his observations and criticisms would be voiced mostly in private.

Let’s see.

The Labor Party that has stepped back from all this today is a party that knows that it has now lost, that it has lost the elections, that it has lost attention, that it has often lost the debate.

The election of Powell is an expression of this concern.

Just think about the queues and challenges of the last seven weeks.

Rayner, Lord Mandelson. Refugees. Chinese spy case order. The Caerphilly by-election is just the start.

I asked Powell whether things were salvageable for the country, the government and his party.

Yes, he insisted.

Whether he is right or not will determine the fate of this government.