Political Agenda this week, by Mathew Beech

“Can Corbyn fill a full shadow ministerial team?”

Fresh from seeing off the challenge of Owen Smith, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has begun chopping and changing his shadow cabinet.

Barry Gardiner, who was almost the entire shadow cabinet – filling three roles simultaneously – has been reined back into a shadow BEIS role, but he retains a shadow cabinet place by staying on as shadow international trade secretary.

Into his business and energy place comes Clive Lewis, who has been shifted sideways from shadow defence secretary.

Lewis, who is seen as one of Corbyn’s potential successors, has been kept in a high-profile role – possibly to prevent another leadership bid. It is also a marker of how high the business and energy brief now is. Plus, Lewis was a junior minister in shadow Decc under Lisa Nandy. Alan Whitehead regains a shadow energy minister brief.

In shadow Defra HQ, Rachael Maskell continues in the role she picked up in June following the wave of post-Brexit, anti-Corbyn resignations and remains as shadow environment secretary.

The bad blood between Corbyn and large swathes of the parliamentary Labour party remains obvious, as the reshuffle crawls on with, at the time of going to print, a number of junior ministerial roles still to be filled.

Reshuffles are usually a time to freshen up the top team, and for the leader to build and boost their support base. With doubts over whether he can fill a full shadow ministerial team, Corbyn still appears to be labouring to win support from the backbenches.