Corbyn could be greater than Blair, says Eagle
Angela Eagle emerged from Labour’s chaotic reshuffle as its most powerful woman. Now what, asks Mary Riddell
Angela Eagle has emerged from Labour’s chaotic reshuffle as its most powerful woman. The shadow business secretary, a moderate with very different views to Jeremy Corbyn, believes he might prove to be a more successful leader than Blair, Brown or Miliband.
The summons came late on a Sunday afternoon. Angela Eagle was at the TUC conference in Brighton when her phone rang. “It was Jeremy [Corbyn], and I had to rush out of the hall. He asked me if I was willing to serve, and I said I would. Then he offered me the job of shadow business secretary.”
The second phone call was many hours later, and this time the voice did not belong to Corbyn. Eagle will not divulge who offered her the additional post of shadow first secretary of state, pitting her against George Osborne at Prime Minister’s Questions in David Cameron’s absence. “I’m not going into details about who it was,” she says.
Her wariness is unsurprising. The process by which she became the most senior woman in the Labour Party has since been revealed in excruciating detail by a television journalist who overheard the chaotic reshuffle in progress.
According to the broadcaster, an aide, alarmed that the Corbynites were “taking s---” over the lack of women in top jobs, recommended that Eagle be made shadow first secretary. “Do the Angela bit now,” he is reported to have urged. Was she not tempted to upbraid the Labour leader’s emissary for his late offer?
“No. I said it was fine because I liked the idea of giving PMQs a go.” Though still untested in her new role, in 2011 she made an unscheduled appearance at the weekly event when a furious Cameron told her to “Calm down, dear” during a Commons debate on NHS reforms.
Her office, in a turret high above Westminster, still contains piles of campaign posters (she came fourth in the Labour deputy leadership contest) inscribed “I’m With Angela: Calm Down Dear”. It is hard to imagine a less histrionic presence than Eagle, a moderate with very different views to Corbyn’s.
A top team player under Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, she was widely tipped to be Corbyn’s shadow chancellor. “I didn’t ask for that job, but I’d have been more than prepared to do it,” she says. “It [the reshuffle] was all happening around me. I was thinking, ‘Blimey…’ ”
Is she alluding to the appointment of the ultra-Left John McDonnell as shadow chancellor? “A leader can appoint who he wants. I think he [McDonnell] has things to prove because he’s been so marginalised. Jeremy has been marginalised, too. We’ve got to give them a bit of space. I wouldn’t second-guess the decisions Jeremy has made. Time will tell.” Eagle knows what it is to be an outsider. She was brought up in a workingclass household in Bridlington, East Yorkshire, with her twin sister Maria, who is Corbyn’s defence spokesman. Her mother was a seamstress and her father a print worker who taught his daughters to play chess.
Angela went on to become the under-18s British champion and, like her sister, to a place at Oxford University.
Lord Ashcroft’s biography of the Prime Minister, she says, revealed a louche and privileged side of Oxford that she never observed.
“I’m afraid I had a much quieter time than David Cameron. I spent a lot of time in the library. You could pick an original copy of Walter Raleigh’s History of the World off the shelves. I never thought I’d be in a place like that.
“My mum was very clever. She died when I was 25, so she never saw either of us elected. She was a very working-class woman who had passed the 11-plus, but her family could not afford the uniform. She never fitted in at the grammar school, so she left at 14 to work in a biscuit factory. She was determined we wouldn’t make the mistakes that she did.”
Industrious as she is, Eagle has a more frivolous side. Her heroine is Mae West, and she enjoys buying clothes. “I might run down the road and get myself a lipstick from House of Fraser,” she says. A sports fanatic, she played cricket for many years. “But I’m too slow now. I can’t get out of the way of the ball.” At 54, she has avoided the many googlies bowled by her political opponents while
‘I wouldn’t secondguess the decisions Jeremy has made. Time will tell’
never courting the limelight. For many years, she slipped so far from the public eye, “it seemed as if I’d fallen through a trapdoor”.
That self-imposed purdah began in 1997, following her re-election to the Merseyside seat of Wallasey, when she came out as gay. She feared that the revelation might destroy her. “I did it because I wanted to move in with my very long-standing girlfriend. We hadn’t hidden it, but it was time to make it more public. I thought that if [coming out] lost me my seat, so be it.”
The first person she told was her then boss, Lord Prescott. “He said, ‘Tell me something I don’t know, love’ and asked if he could give me a hug. Tony [Blair] was fantastic, and my constituents were fine.”
Some years ago, she and her partner Maria Exall, a BT engineer, embarked on a civil partnership, but they have not yet married under Cameron’s new legislation. “Maria is a Catholic, and we’re waiting for the church to change its mind [on same-sex marriage].”
For all the public support, there was a downside. “Every time I was interviewed, people wanted only to ask about me being gay and ask who else was. I didn’t want to gossip, so I disappeared from the public eye.” That reticence has led some observers to overlook Eagle’s talents.
No one doubts her combative nature, least of all her sister, who was elected to a nearby seat in Liverpool in 1997. “There’s a bit of twin rivalry. I used to lord it over her because I’m 15 minutes older. It’s all very embarrassing to think back now, but I insisted on having the top bunk bed and things like that. But we’re very friendly and very loyal.”
Did Maria consult her before accepting the post of shadow defence secretary – a post reportedly declined by others wary of Corbyn’s anti-Trident stance? “You have to make those decisions for yourself, and Maria doesn’t need my advice.”
Having toured dozens of hustings as a deputy leadership contender, Eagle saw earlier than most that Corbyn was unstoppable.
“I was asked by thousands of people if I would serve [the new leader], and I said I would. The party wanted a reboot. It wouldn’t thank people who want to be destabilising before Jeremy’s even had a chance.”
Despite that veiled warning to rebellious MPs, the leader and his de facto deputy do not see eye to eye on many subjects. It will, she admits, be difficult for Corbyn to balance the wishes of new members and MPs. “Of course. That’s what he has to tackle in the run-up to
conference.” The first potential clash may be over whether to bomb Syria, which Corbyn opposes. “It will have to be a collective decision,” she says.
Does that mean there is no question of a free vote for Labour MPs? “I’ve no idea,” she says, sounding suddenly more agitated.
“We’ll have to discuss it at shadow cabinet. I have no idea what’s in Jeremy’s mind – I haven’t talked to him about this.”
She would not, however, rule out bombing raids. “I certainly wouldn’t. I’m not a pacifist, though I’m not in favour of gratuitous military action.”
For all the rows and rifts in prospect, Eagle welcomes upheaval. “We’ve had top-down control, which came from Tony and throttled debate. There’s been a yearning for discussion. I admit this is a rather dramatic way to bring it about.”
Might Corbyn end up as a more successful leader than Blair, Brown or Miliband? “He may well.”
But nor would she deny that few mainstream parties have taken a bigger gamble. As she says: “When you reboot a computer, you don’t know if it will fix itself, or if the problem will be as bad as it was before.”
Whatever the future, the shadow first secretary of state will be battling to save her party and to champion those who follow in her footsteps. “I want Labour to be full of feisty women making a fuss,” she says. Angela Eagle will, as ever, be leading the way.
‘We’ve been yearning for discussion... I want Labour to be full of feisty women’