Asked if there was a particular teacher who inspired her as she records an election campaign video, Bridget Phillipson has no clue what is about to happen next. As she begins to talk about her “brilliant Spanish teacher Miss Haq”, out from behind the camera steps Zahida Haq, her childhood teacher. “Oh my god,” she says in surprise.

Ms Haq says the Shadow Education Secretary is “pretty much the embodiment of what I set out to achieve”. The 40-year-old, who could now be on the verge of taking over the running of England’s schools, was raised by a single mum in a council house in Washington in the North East relied on free school meals. But after winning a place at Oxford University, she became an MP and is now one of Labour ’s rising stars.

Labour's Bridget Phillipson vows to make affordable childcare available for all parents Bridget Phillipson was surprised by her old teacher as she filmed a campaign video “I remember you had a beautiful smile and an incredible thirst for knowledge,” Ms Haq tells her. “I remember you sitting at the front right hand side of the classroom with long plaits and just being an absolute model student really. I’d gone into education to make a difference for children like myself who’d come from the council estates like the estate that I grew up on.

To inspire young people to achieve the best academic outcomes that they could and to use that knowledge and that learning for the greater good.” Quick fire questions Favourite su.