Michael Foot for his rumpled appearance. A centrist faction of the party broke away in 1981 to form the SDP. Foot led Labour into the 1983 general election, when the party obtained its lowest share of the vote since the 1918 general election and the fewest parliamentary seats it had had at any time since before 1945. He resigned after the election, and was succeeded as leader by Neil Kinnock. Among the books he authored are "Guilty Men" (1940); "The Pen and the Sword" (1957), a biography of Jonathan Swift; and a biography of Aneurin Bevan. Foot was born in Lipson Terrace,
Leader of the New Zealand Labour Party there must be a caucus vote to endorse the Leader; if the Leader fails to receive endorsement then an election is triggered. When the Labour Party forms the Parliamentary Opposition, the Leader of the Party usually acts as the Leader of the Opposition, and chairs a Shadow Cabinet. Concordantly, when the party is in Government, as it currently is, the Leader generally becomes the Prime Minister of New Zealand. Unique to Labour, the party's caucus possesses the right to elect MPs to Cabinet, rather than the Leader choosing them. The practice began following the 1940 leadership election. Michael Joseph Savage