Jeremy Corbyn warned against ‘revenge reshuffle’

Mrs Thornberry has frontbench experience as shadow attorney general before Ed Miliband sacked her for posting a picture on Twitter of a white van outside a house draped in the St George’s flag, which some said was patronising.

The sacking is the first in a reshuffle that began on Monday at 2.30pm and is expected to conclude on Tuesday.

The Labour leader has even been spotted shooing journalists away from his office door so they can’t overhear his conversations with shadow ministers.

At the weekend, Shadow Culture Secretary Michael Dugher dismissed reports of a reshuffle as speculation, saying that “these things swirl around in politics, not just in the Labour party, in all the parties”, the BBC reports.

But what would the effect of a more modest reshuffle be? “He has got a commanding majority of Labour’s National Executive Committee and – contrary to all the predictions – a majority of the shadow cabinet voted with him on Syria”.

But Mr Lewis – a key figure Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign – said nobody had spoken to him about a potential promotion, suggesting that he would be unlikely to take the job if offered. Jeremy Corbyn has seen his support go up amongst the party membership. Indeed, the shadow foreign secretary’s intervention was widely applauded as one of the best parliamentary speeches since Churchill rallied parliament to meet the menace of Hitler and now he may be replaced (or shuffled sideways) because of it.

The “great offices” – chancellor, foreign secretary and home secretary – were shadowed respectively by John McDonnell, Hilary Benn and Andy Burnham.

“There is a problem if – as we had with the debate on Syria – our principal spokesman stands up at the end of the debate and puts a completely different line to the leader of the Labour Party.”

“Never mind how many Eagles we end up with”, he said in reference to Maria and her twin sister, shadow business secretary Angela Eagle.

She voted against Mr Corbyn on Syria and is a staunch supporter of the Trident nuclear deterrent – another issue on which she is at odds with the leader.

Reporters said Ms Eagle looked upset after meeting Mr Corbyn but she told them: “I have nothing to say, but that shouldn’t surprise you”.

‘But to be quite frank, my initial inclination would be to say no’.

Mr Corbyn’s record on promoting women came under criticism from leading Labour MPs ahead of the reshuffle.

Shadow Europe minister Pat McFadden while speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour said that Mr Corbyn’s in his “whole career” has disagreed with party leaders.

Pressed on whether Mr Benn should keep his role as shadow foreign secretary, she added: “That’s a matter for the leader and I’m not going to speculate about what decisions Jeremy wants to make”.

“These are superannuated Trotskyite oppositionists, they are not real politicians and I’m afraid it’s a disaster as far as I’m concerned”.

‘It will change of course because the Labour Party has been on its knees many times before…