1983 Labour Party (UK) Shadow Cabinet election 1983 Labour Party (UK) Shadow Cabinet election Elections to the Labour Party's Shadow Cabinet (more formally, its "Parliamentary Committee") were announced on 28 October 1983. In addition to the 15 members elected, the Leader (Neil Kinnock), Deputy Leader (Roy Hattersley), Labour Chief Whip (Michael Cocks), Labour Leader in the House of Lords (Lord Cledwyn of Penrhos), and Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (Jack Dormand) were automatically members. Denis Healey, who had previously been automatically a shadow cabinet member as Deputy Leader, topped the poll. Robin Cook, Michael Meacher and Giles Radice joined the cabinet; Jones and Meacher had not
History of the Labour Party (UK) History of the Labour Party (UK) The British Labour Party grew out of the trade union movement of the late 19th century, and surpassed the Liberal Party as the main opposition to the Conservatives in the early 1920s. In the 1930s and 1940s it stressed national planning, using nationalization of industry as a tool, in line with Clause IV of the original constitution of the Labour Party which called for the "...common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service" (this clause was eventually