Rebecca Long Bailey’s obscurity once worked in her favour – now it could be her undoing

A 12-week campaign might illuminate weaknesses hitherto masked by the public’s lack of familiarity with the MP

In all of human history, there was never a child prodigy to match Rebecca Long Bailey.

If you’re screaming “Mozart!”, fall silent. All right, having a piece of music published at seven undeniably puts Wolfgang Amadeus right up there on the pantheon of precocity.

Nonetheless, alone on the top plinth is the frontrunner for the Labour leadership. By the time she was two, Long-Bailey had come of age as a political savant.