Shabana Mahmood has achieved, in a small way, what Labour needs in the bigger picture to address its declining relations with the electorate: persuade a committed Conservative to vote for her and advance her ambitions.

That was in the cloistered surroundings of Lincoln College Oxford, circa 2001 when she knocked on the door of a fellow student, one Rishi Sunak, to persuade an earnest young Tory to vote for her in a student election. He did.

That determination to reach out across the zone of her political tribe has powered her into the role of Home Secretary after a trial run at the Ministry of  Justice established her ability to front policy shifts, like an early release scheme to free up prison places, and explore more draconian crime remedies, like voluntary chemical castration as a condition for the release of sex offenders.

What is unthinkable for the more uptight liberal end of Labour’s political elite is meat and drink to Mahmood.

Now she has nabbed one of the top offices of state at the Home Office. In a reshuffle which looks like a patchwork quilt of re-worked Labour figures being  reassigned in a “Buggins’ turn” rotation, her elevation has a rare problem-solving edge.

It is intended to cauterize the drift of faith away from Labour on its hesitant approach to stemming the persistent small boats problem, and to act as a praetorian guard, protecting Keir Starmer from a

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