The Eagle sisters always wanted to go into politics. Now with their working-class roots, their Stakhanovite work ethic and self-confidence to spare, they have become the most powerful women in the Labour party. Just don’t mention the Milibands…

Interviewing the Eagles, who are twins, one after the other, makes me feel a little like Derek Batey, the sometime host of the 70s TV gameshow Mr & Mrs. Though I know they are two different people, with separate lives and two quite different jobs to do, I can’t help but fixate on whether their answers to my questions match up. And when they do match up, which is often, it’s weirdly disarming. Comical as it is that they both tell me all about the queue for the ladies’ loo at Labour party conference, and what it signifies in terms of the party’s gender representation – the longer the line, the happier they are, strange as this may sound – it also puts me on the back foot. Somehow, they have strength in numbers even when separated by bricks and mortar and a creaky, impossible-to-find House of Commons lift.

But perhaps this is the point. Angela, the MP for Wallasey and the older of the two by 15 minutes, has been in parliament since 1992, and Maria, the MP for Garston and Halewood, since 1997. Between them, they have masses of ministerial experience, having served in the governments of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown; they were in Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet, and are now in Jeremy Corbyn’s. Putting aside for a moment their great cleverness, their obvious determination and capacity for hard work, a vital component of their staying power must surely be their solidarity: in a place where backstabbing (and sometimes frontstabbing) comes as standard, they, at least, are safe in the knowledge that they will always be in possession of an ally. The two of them are, it is obvious immediately, extremely close, each other’s truest friend in a world where friendship all too frequently comes at a price. Never in a million years could you imagine their offices briefing against each other, as the Milibands’ once did.

I talk to Maria first, in a meeting room at Portcullis House, the modern building that houses MPs just across the road from the Palace of Westminster. It takes a little while for her to warm up, but once she does she is unexpectedly and quite deliciously wry. She’s also, from the off, bracingly straightforward. Since last month, she has been the shadow culture secretary, and while she’s already well on the way to mastering her new brief, she’s not about to start discussing the ballet just yet. “I quite like sport,” she says, carefully. “I’m a football fan and I like cricket. I do like the cinema and the theatre now and then. But I don’t have a lot of spare time and the job involves a range of other important things: broadband, the information commissioner, the creative industries.”

The point is – and she makes it now – that she would find any brief interesting. It’s for white papers that she came into politics, not glamour, or even her own interests, such as they are. Her priorities right now, then, are the BBC, which she believes must be defended from a government that would like to “flog it off or shut it down”, and the implementation of the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry, from which she fears the Tories are in the process of tiptoeing away: “It’s almost like phone hacking never happened. If you look at that cosy relationship between senior politicians and the media, some of the same concerns are re-emerging. George Osborne has been meeting Rupert Murdoch repeatedly.”

She must, I say, have known she would be moved from defence in the shadow cabinet reshuffle, given her difference of opinion with Jeremy Corbyn over Trident. But, no. “I didn’t know that at all,” she says. “When Jeremy appointed me to defence in September, I reminded him what my position was on the nuclear deterrent. Therefore, I thought I had been appointed to carry out the defence review. It certainly wasn’t my expectation that I would be moved.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The sisters outside the palace of Westminster in 2011. Photograph: Felix Clay/The Guardian

Was she disappointed? “Yes, I was. I asked him to keep me on. I felt I could have done a good review, one that was credible. But he had obviously changed his mind and that is up to him.”

Did she consider walking away altogether? “I could have done that. But I’ve been in Labour since I was 17 and now I’m pushing 55. The Labour party is more important than any personality.”

Still, she must feel that with the election of Corbyn, Labour has gone back to the future. He looks and sounds to me precisely like the blokes who used to run, say, Sheffield in the 80s, and with this comes a sense of repetition, and thus, of futility – or at least, of great weariness. “That’s your perspective,” she says, though I notice that a smile has crept over her face. “But yes, I am keen that Labour presents an alternative to the government that is credible to the voters of this country. One of my memories of the 80s is of having to fight to save Labour from irrelevance at a time when Thatcher was wrecking the city of Liverpool around me. We don’t want to go back and it’s the role of people like me to make sure we don’t.”

How on earth will she do this? “It’s not easy after you’ve lost two elections on the run. What appealed to the electorate in 1997 won’t necessarily appeal to it in 2020. But the question is: what will? People like me have some experience in government. I think my perspective can be valuable to the leader.”

The polls (even if taken with a vat of salt) do, she agrees, look bad for Labour at the moment. But she also believes that the Conservatives are about “to fall apart” over Europe: “I can’t see how they will be able to reconcile their ultras on either side”.

When did she realise Corbyn would be her new leader? “It was pretty clear once you started watching the hustings. People wanted something different: that’s the main thing. Think about the last election. There was Ed in his red tie and Cameron in his blue one and – what’s his name? – oh, yes, Clegg in his yellow one, and they all looked and sounded similar and they were all dancing on the head of a pin…That’s where his [Corbyn’s] appeal came from.”

She says it’s wrong for people to expect a full suite of new policies just yet: there’s no point in simply “tweaking little retail offers” and the necessary “fundamental rethink” is going to take time. But of the ability of Corbyn and his acolytes to carry out such a reassessment, she seems less certain, albeit for ostensibly charitable reasons. “They’re in an adjustment process,” she says. “Running a party when you’ve only ever been a backbencher… It’s much faster, you’ve got much more coming at you.”

Hmm. Is speed really the issue here? All through the Blair years, Corbyn sat tight, thinking the same things he’d always done. The life of a parliament is a mere nanosecond to the likes of him, a brontosaurus, lumbering slowly across the Earth. She laughs. “I hadn’t thought of it like that…”

She looks at her aide and laughs again. “But… I can only guess at the shock they’ve undergone. It’s enough of an adjustment to go from backbencher to minister, let alone to frontbencher.”

For her, of course, the adjustments have all been the other way. I’m not convinced she has fully come to terms with being in opposition, even after almost six years. “I’d like the chance to be a cabinet minister!” she says, frustratedly, when I ask about the slog of it.

I can say anything to Angela. She will understand and back me up. It has been a huge strength, having her here

Not that she is complaining, exactly. She and her sister have a Stakhanovite approach to work and a fearlessness that is both admirable and unnerving. It is as if they were trained for this life, like greyhounds, for which reason they will just keep going. “I wanted to be a member of parliament from a younger age than you might think,” she says. “I was five or six. It’s like those children you see in their football kits and then they grow up to be Messi.”

It never occurred to either Eagle that they wouldn’t, in the fullness of time, end up here: failure seems not to be a word in their lexicon. “I never thought I couldn’t. I always thought I would.”

Where did this self-belief come from? “It was my parents. They were both working class, from Sheffield. My mum was the only person in her school who passed her 11-plus but then she dropped out [her parents could not afford the uniform and she was teased]. My father had been at art school but he had to leave to make a living and was apprenticed to the print trade. They both thought they had missed opportunities – my mum was thwarted, she felt she’d failed – and they didn’t want that for us. Their attitude was: you can do it and you should. The only thing they were worried about was us not being interested in things.”

Later on, both girls applied to Oxford to read PPE. Maria got her place first. “In Formby [where they grew up], people would say to me, ‘What if Angela doesn’t get in?’ And I would say, ‘Of course she’s going to get in. What are you talking about?’”

Was Oxford intimidating? Both sisters went to colleges that had then only just begun accepting women. “Oh, God, no.” She looks baffled at the suggestion. “I liked it. It was incredibly stimulating. I think if you’ve wanted to be an MP since you were six, you’re fairly confident about what you’re doing.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest At Portcullis House in London last week. Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Observer

Having made “quite a splash” in the university Labour club, she worked as a solicitor while she embarked on a political career on Merseyside. “Angela became an MP five years before me and so there was this thing in Liverpool of: we’ve already got one Eagle sister. The implication was that people thought I would never get selected. But I always thought I would.”

Winning her seat was the “culmination of a lifetime’s dreams”, particularly on that night of all nights, when the scale of Labour’s victory in 1997 was bigger than in 1945 – and this may be one reason, among many, why she is not about to start knocking the Blair years now: “One of the biggest mistakes we made in the last parliament was not defending our record. It came from Ed Miliband, who didn’t want to look back, and it was a major mistake.” (It is also, incidentally, her view that Miliband simply “did not understand the party” when he changed its membership rules to allow registered supporters, who’d paid just £3, a vote in the leadership election: “It’s not as if there’s a vacancy [for the leadership], but I don’t think our rules work now. Older [full] members resent the fact that someone, even a Tory supporter, could pay £3 and have the same say as them.”)

But her victory was made all the sweeter by knowing that she and her sister would return to Westminster together. “I can say anything to her. She will understand and back me up.” How important is their relationship, as she clambers up (and occasionally slides down) the greasy pole? “It has been a huge strength, having her here. She is brilliant. I really don’t think I’d have been as happy without her.”

A pause, and then she says, through mock gritted teeth: “Though I expect I would have managed.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Angela Eagle takes on George Osborne at PMQs in December.

Angela comes up to Maria’s office so they can have their photograph taken together and then we set off for her eyrie, high in a tower at the Palace of Westminster (it has the most fantastic views of the river but if I ever want to find my way out again, my only hope is to scatter biscuit crumbs as we walk). En route, we pass Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s wraith-like spin doctor. Oh dear. How to explain the wince he passes off as a smile? Perhaps, though, the shadow business secretary is in his bad books, having recently slapped down with some firmness in a Sunday newspaper Corbyn’s plan to ban companies from paying dividends if they do not also pay the living wage.

A few moments later, safely in her office, I whip out the cutting in question and wave it at her. But she’s not bothered. She barely stirs. “I had to deal with this issue. It just doesn’t work. A lot of companies would just de-list. Others don’t pay dividends. But I did talk to Jeremy about it. They weren’t… unaware.”

Angela is quieter and, outwardly, softer than her sister. But she, too, takes self-possession to envy-inducing new heights, as anyone who saw her standing in for Corbyn opposite George Osborne at prime minister’s questions in December will know (as well as being the shadow business secretary, she is also the shadow first secretary of state). Her performance was brilliant, triumphant. “How’s it all going?” she asked the increasingly uncomfortable looking chancellor. And then: “She knows who she is.” (A sly reference to his rival for the Tory leadership, Theresa May.) Deadpan to the last, she looked like she was enjoying herself, which, as it happens, she was. “I didn’t know if I’d be nervous,” she says. “But I wasn’t. Not at all. It was great fun. I hope it helped people to realise that some women do have a sense of humour… even that some lesbians have a sense of humour [she is gay].”

Or maybe, I say, it helped some people to realise she could one day lead the Labour party. “I’m not getting involved in that, but I do know it was great to be given the opportunity. The prime minister came up to me the next week and congratulated me, and I said: when are you going to give me another chance to do it? Because, of course, it depends on him being away.”

I hope it helped people realise some women do have a sense of humour… even that some lesbians have a sense of humour Angela Eagle

I think Cameron must be mightily relieved that he has to face her boss rather than her over the dispatch box every week. “Well, I am more old school [than Corbyn],” she says.

Like Maria, she believes the party must reconnect with people and that in order to do so it needs a “forward-looking offer” rather than a backward-looking one. “This [she means Corbyn and co] is an extreme reboot but whoever had won [the Labour leadership], we would have had to do some really radical thinking. The catastrophe in Scotland is particularly difficult for us because it’s hard for us to win an election without it. We’ve got to have some Heineken moments now: we’ve got to reach parts we haven’t touched in a long time.”

It’s a bit like the 80s, isn’t it? “Yes. Even the music’s coming back – at least that’s something good about it.”

She is (again, this is like her sister) frustrated and willing to admit so: “I’d rather be in a minority government than not at all. I didn’t come into parliament just to be an MP, though it’s a fantastic job. Do I think the last Labour government was perfect? No. But one day of Labour government is better than 10 years of the Tories.”

How easy will it be to ally the expectations of a membership that voted for Corbyn, the parliamentary party, and the wider electorate? As she admits, this is another matter altogether. “We’ve got to welcome people. But it’s also the case that those people can’t expect the party to agree with everything they think, and if it doesn’t, they walk away from it.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Maria Eagle (second from left) and Angela Eagle (right of Ed Miliband) in a lineup of female shadow cabinet members at the Labour party conference in 2014. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

Is the atmosphere among Labour MPs as rancorous as some claim? “Well, PLP meetings are certainly more interesting than they used to be.”

Will there be some kind of an SDP-style split? “Splits don’t work, as the people who joined the SDP are telling us. The party is a broad church. We’re used to arguments. That’s not a problem. We’re passionate.”

What about deselections? Is the leadership going to root out those MPs whose views it dislikes? “There’s no doubt that there are now things being said, and organisations being brought together, that threaten that. But MPs are able to live with all that.” As she points out, under Blair, it was the left that was marginalised, on the receiving end of disrespectful comments. That’s the way it goes.

We talk about her self-assurance, and she traces it to the same source as Maria: their parents. She, too, couldn’t understand what people meant when they wondered aloud what she would do if she didn’t get into Oxford. “I remember thinking: what are you on about? Of course I’ll get in. I was astonished anyone could think I wouldn’t. It sounds arrogant, doesn’t it? But from the beginning we were brought up to believe there was nothing we couldn’t do. I’ve since discovered that the meritocracy doesn’t really exist. But I do have this belief in it, that I’m trying to grow myself out of. The view was that you didn’t waste your chances and we absorbed that. I was shocked rigid the first time I came across sexism.”

When was that? “I was eight. My dad had taught us to play chess. He worked nights but most of his work [as a printer] came at the beginning and then he had six hours of waiting to see the results. So he took up chess, and then he wanted to have someone to play with at home, so he taught us. We immediately started beating him, so he carted us along to the Formby chess club. When I entered the Formby junior under-11s, I had to play this little boy – and when he realised I was a girl, he panicked. ‘This isn’t right,’ he said, and I thought: what does he mean? And then my eight-year-old self thought: he’s frightened of losing to a girl! And then I thought: well, he is going to lose, and he did, and I won the tournament. And when the prize was a Biggles book, I realised that chess was only for little boys, and that I would have to carry on, and so I did.”

I’ve been in Labour since I was 17, and now I’m pushing 55. The party is more important than any personality Maria Eagle

She continued to play tournaments – at her peak, she made some appearances for the England ladies team, as it was then known – until she was 21. Does she still play now? “No. You have to study opening theory and I don’t have the time.” What’s funny about this is that it seems not to occur to her that I wanted to know if she still plays for pleasure.

Chess was brilliant training for politics. She learned to control her nerves from an early age and travelling to tournaments on a Friday at the end of a school week prepared her for heading off to her constituency after a late vote on a Thursday. When I ask her what form, if any, her self-doubt takes, she says: “The chess player in me would say you don’t discuss your doubts because it gives your opponents a chance to know your weaknesses”, though she will concede that while she thinks she is clever and a hard worker, “I’m not sure I’m naturally charismatic”.

Is politics as sexist as the world of 70s junior chess? “I try to go on as if it isn’t happening,” she says. “I think the media are probably more sexist than parliament.” It is difficult, sometimes, having to interrupt men in meetings. But it has to be done. “I was never going to be one of those women who asserted themselves using feminine wiles,” she says. “Because I never really had feminine wiles. I certainly wasn’t remotely interested in the male sex and so I was never bothered about being acceptable to boys. When I told John Prescott I was gay [she came out to the public in 1997], he said, ‘Tell me something I don’t know’. But all the gay men were astonished because they hadn’t noticed I wasn’t flirting with them.”

Has she been on the receiving end of homophobia? “Never in here, or not openly. The odd occasion outside, maybe.”

She and Maria have undoubtedly made sacrifices for politics: “Time with loved ones, leisure time, because there isn’t any.” What about friends? “Yes. I have a few but those I do have are very good friends. I couldn’t fill a ballroom but I could fill a small upstairs restaurant and it would be a very nice evening.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Angela Eagle with her partner Maria Exall at their civil partnership ceremony in 2008. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA Archive/Press Association Ima

Maria is single, but Angela has a partner, Maria Exall (they had a civil partnership in 2008). “She is a trade union layperson but her career is pretty full on too. Quite often we miss each other, even at weekends. We’ve both got very big ‘oughts’ – things we ought to do. But we make time for each other, I hope.”

How does she keep going, though, especially with the party’s fortunes at such a low ebb? All that walking up hill, no downward slope in sight. “Winning in 2020 is a huge task. You have to acknowledge that. But if I sit here going, ‘It’s all hopeless’, how the hell am I going to persuade anyone to put their trust in us? And strange things do happen in politics.”

Her voice is steady. “The impossible can happen.”