 Marsha de Cordova has resigned as Shadow Equality's secretary in the most high-profile resignation yet from Stammer's top team. The Cordova announced her resignation in a tweet, she wrote, it has been an immense privilege to serve as the Shadow Women and Equality Secretary for the past 17 months. It therefore comes with much sadness that I am resigning with immediate effect. Having only been elected in 2017 for the historically marginal constituency of Battersea, I would like to focus more of my time and efforts on the people of Battersea. I will continue to support Kier Stammer from the back benches. That tweet doesn't make the resignation sound particularly contentious. It was a very polite resignation tweet, but according to an article in The Voice, there were political disagreements underlying the Cordova's decision. They report. Associates of Battersea MP claim that the party failed to put her on a single media round during 17 months in the job and that she was offered just five minutes speaking time at Labour's annual conference, which takes place next week. Sources said that efforts to set up a tax force of experts to design progressive race equality policy were held back over concerns this might upset Redwall voters and that Stammer had resisted pleas to make a speech setting out his vision to black communities. They also quote a friend of Dekordova who told The Voice, it's been bubbling for a while. She just wasn't being supported in the bottom line, which you can only do so much before it becomes difficult and it did become very difficult. She always had a goal that she wanted Kier to speak authentically about race and despite her trying, it just was never going to happen. Marsha wanted to develop Labour's vision for race equality but kept meeting stumbling blocks even to just put out comments on things it was watered down. You know, challenging the Prime Minister, you're not allowed to do that. It's the people around Stammer. His team, they don't understand race or the importance of it. Aaron, I want your thoughts on this. This resignation hasn't received too much coverage in the press. You might think this would create some negative coverage around Kier Stammer. It hasn't really made a ripple. Do you think this is a big deal? You know, it is a big deal and it's also because it's part of a broader pattern and people might not know that because it's barely being talked about. You had about a year ago now, Emma Hardy pulled back from the Shadow Cabinet to focus on her constituency. It's in her, I believe. It's a leave voting constituency. The reason why is because she thinks she might lose it. You're going to see that more and more. Then a few weeks ago, you saw something similar with Luke Pollard taking a step back. You're seeing, these are all for different reasons, of course. Now you're seeing Marsha Cordova stepping back. You're seeing moves with Charlotte Nichols. I don't quite know the full story here. I've not heard the full story, but she's been moved effectively by mutual agreement, as I understand it. And what this would suggest to you is the poor polling, the enmity towards Kier Stammer from big parts of the membership, not all of it, but from big parts of the membership. And then you've got people who should be your allies. Marsha Cordova, she nominated Kier Stammer to be Labour leader. She's on the left, but she nominated Kier Stammer to be Labour leader. And as I understand it, her major misgivings about Stammer are, as identified in this voice article one, he's nowhere on race. Absolutely nowhere on race. And then two, he is kind of apparently, or the people around him, people always say the people around him as if it's some sort of some court. The monarch's never to blame, it's always the courtiers. They want to basically just completely eviscerate the left and get them out of the party. That's their number one priority. And I think for anybody who looks at the climate, who looks at Black Lives Matter, who looks at the housing crisis, who looks at COVID-19, that is insane. It looks ridiculous and crazy. They don't want to be a part of that. And I don't think you have to be on the left or a radical to think that. And so I think Marsha saw that, she saw the race stuff, and I think she's taking a step back. And I don't think she'll lose her seat. But I think that seat in Battersea wasn't labored until 2017. So she will have to work to keep it. And people think, oh, well, Stam is going to keep all of Labour's votes from 2019. In big cities, I personally don't think he will. And I think she'll have a reduced majority. And so I think there's that calculus too, like the Mahadi. So we'll see. I think it is a big story. Because I think if you've got people who two years out from an election, that's looking at 2023, are already saying, I can't serve in the shadow cabinet, will you get quite a small talent pool in the end for Labour? And I think that plus the race side of this big story. And again, this stuff just isn't being covered by the Guardian, by the liberal left press, because they don't really care. They don't really care about these things, just that they don't really care about climate change, quite frankly. So yeah, but it is, I think it is a big story. And I think something's going on under the surface, Michael. I think there's many, many, many people in the Parliamentary Labour Party, a big misgivings about Stam and the people around him, particularly on policy, particularly on comms. You've had the whole team effectively swept out after battle and spend. People don't really know who these other people are. And if you're in a constituency with a 1,500, 2,000 majority, you're going to be thinking, oh, these people might lose me my job. And I think there's a lot of MPs thinking like that right now. On the one hand, I think the reason, yeah, the Guardian, et cetera, making a big deal about this is because they don't enjoy criticising Keir Starmer in the same way they enjoy criticising Jeremy Corbyn. At the same time, you might ask, if Marshall Cordova has these critiques, why not include that in the tweet? Because it would have been harder to ignore then, wouldn't it? So I don't know, what do you think about that? Why do you think we've got this situation where the voice have been briefed that this was about political disagreements and then the MP has officially said, oh, actually, this is because I want to spend more time in my constituency. How would someone make sense of that? Well, the way I read it is this could be wrong. She's only been an MP for four years. Starmer's an experience. She's only been an MP for four years. And I think she resigned. She didn't want it to be messy. I think it's easy if you're just basically seeking re-election, go to the back benches. You don't want to cause a drama. But the reality is if you resign, people, if you don't say why you've resigned, people will create reasons as to why you've resigned. And you have to say why you've resigned. So you get claims about, well, it was racism. Oh, it's because she's on the left. It's because of LGBT stuff. As I understand, it's got nothing to do with LGBT stuff. I mean, that could, I might be wrong. But let me say, she's not directly stated why she's leaving. My understanding is about Starmer's position on race and the fact that basically the people around her aren't serious about power. They're serious about eviscerating the left. But like I say, I think she should state it quite clearly. You don't need to be mean and aggressive and belligerent. But like I say, if you don't give your reasons, somebody else will. And they may not be true. So you need to tell your own side of the story.