Who is the new Shadow Home Secretary Lyn Brown?

Lyn Brown is to step up as the new Shadow Home Secretary after Diane Abbott was unable to take part in interviews yesterday due to ill health, the Labour leader has announced.

It leaves the relatively little-known politician in one of the most high-profile opposition roles for the final day of campaigning before the election.

  • She has a long career in politics behind her

Ms Brown worked in local government a number of years before being elected as MP for West Ham in 2005, a position she has now held for 12 years.

She is standing to regain her seat again in the coming election.

  • Her new job is a big step up in the shadow cabinet

While she has held a number of roles within the opposition administration, none come close to the responsibility of shadow home secretary.

She first entered the shadow cabinet as Shadow Communities Minister in October 2013.

Under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, she had served as the Shadow Fire Minister before becoming Shadow Policing Minister.

Her experience in the policing brief may have been a factor in Mr Corbyn's decision to pick her as his new Home Minister, given the focus on security following a series of terror attacks on British soil.

  • She is not an instinctive Corbynista

Ms Brown admitted that Jeremy Corbyn had not been her first choice as party leader in a blog post shortly after he was first elected by party members in 2015.

However she said he had "re-enthused thousands of people" within the party and vowed she would be "working with Jeremy every step of the way" to get into government.

She was later among a slew of MPs who resigned roles in the shadow cabinet in July 2016 in an attempted coup against Mr Corbyn's leadership.

At the time, she told her local paper that believed the party had "reached a tipping point and, for the good of the party and the country, I believe that we should seek a new leader".