Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson says she's been the victim of sexist briefings

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has told the BBC she's been the victim of "sexist briefings".

Phillipson is running to be the Labour Party's deputy leader against former Commons Leader Lucy Powell, following the resignation of Angela Rayner.

In past weeks, rumours were circulating that she would be sacked from her Cabinet role, while in fact, Phillipson was left in post by Sir Keir Starmer in his recent reshuffle.

Speaking in the week before the Labour Party's autumn conference in Liverpool, where she will go head-to-head with Powell in a hustings, Phillipson laughed off suggestions she was Downing Street's preferred candidate, saying there was "a certain irony" in those assertions.

In an interview about the deputy leadership contest, BBC Radio 5 Live's Matt Chorley asked Phillipson if she felt she'd been on the on the receiving end of sexist briefings.

A briefing often sees insiders suggest to the media that a minister might be promoted or sacked.

Phillipson replied: "Yeah completely, but you know that's life."

Describing "all of this negativity", Phillipson said "there's a certain irony" in then being described as the PM's favourite.

"I've been underestimated most of my life," she said, adding she'll just "continue getting on and doing what I'm doing".

"But I do slightly have to laugh because there's this idea swirling around somehow that I'm Number 10's preferred candidate for all of this."

Challenged on whether there was a problem with Sir Keir's top team, and whether the culture of the team around the prime minister was too bloke-ish, Phillipson said she believed some people did feel left out, in government and in the wider party.

She said: "We had lots of new colleagues who were elected last year, lots of brilliant people who haven't felt that they've been part of the team in the way that they should.

"And that's true from the conversations I've had, not just with colleagues in Parliament, but actually across our movement -- we've got to get better at working together as a team in Parliament but also uniting our party and our movement.

"That's what I would bring in terms of my ability to unite the party and to allow us to get into it the strongest possible position for the really vital elections we've got coming up next May."

Her comments come as the mayor of Greater Manchester threw his weight behind her rival for the deputy post, Lucy Powell.

In an interview with the New Statesman, Andy Burnham said he believed the Labour party was being run in a "factional and quite divisive" way, and that Powell's victory would be key to weakening Downing Street's grip on the party.

Powell, who has cast herself as the "independent choice" in the contest, has also been boosted by a £15,000 donation from green energy industrialist Dale Vince.

Burnham said: "I believe it's right to go all the way and have a deputy leader that is not in the government and thus less constrained by collective responsibility."