QCs, their cab-rank principles forgotten, fled from the proffered defence brief.
JamesLyons (@MirrorJames) Jim Murphy to International Development October 7, 2013 Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) Jim Murphy to leave the defence brief.
Shadow secretary of state for defence Coaker was promoted to the role in 2013 by Miliband and keeps the defence brief.
Her twin sister, Maria, not so feisty but also a decent person, gets the defence brief, never as easy for a Labour politician.
Jeremy Corbyn has sacked two senior figures for "disloyalty" and installed a Trident opponent in the key shadow defence brief as he sought to get a grip on his top team.
He was shadow culture secretary and turned down the defence brief over what he called major policy differences, ending up with a demotion to shadow leader of the Commons.
Carrying the defence brief in opposition, he bonded with his Labour opposite number, Bob Ainsworth, over their shared struggle to persuade their party leaders to take the military's low morale and underfunding more seriously.But the biggest factor in Dr Fox's favour is the growing perception that he was prescient to warn of the impact of defence cuts.
Liam Fox and Vince Cable, probably the most right-wing and left-wing members of the cabinet respectively, are sometimes off-message (the former about his defence brief and the war in Afghanistan, the Lib Dem latter on issues within and beyond his business portfolio).
Nick Robinson said Mr Fox occupied a vital position in the cabinet - having long been in charge of the defence brief in opposition - at a sensitive time when British troops are in action overseas, and the government is pushing through difficult cuts to military budgets.
Reports of an Israeli defence department briefing said the military also planned to launch an assault on the main road linking Beirut to the Syrian capital, Damascus.
