Leader of the Labour Party (UK) the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service, as well as appointing the Cabinet. A list of leaders (including acting leaders) since 1906. It is not uncommon for a retired Leader of the Labour Party to be granted a peerage upon their retirement, particularly if they served as Prime Minister; examples of this include Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson. However, Neil Kinnock was also elevated to the House of Lords, despite never being Prime Minister, and Michael Foot declined a similar offer. There are six living former party leaders: four elected and two acting.
Michael Foot worst post-war Labour party leader. Though Foot is considered by many a failure as Labour leader, his biographer Mervyn Jones strongly makes the case that no one else could have held Labour together at the time, particularly in the face of the controversy over the infiltration of the party by Militant. Foot is remembered with affection in Westminster as a great parliamentarian. He was widely liked, and admired for his integrity, habitual courtesy, and generosity of spirit, by both his colleagues and opponents. A portrait of Foot by the artist Robert Lenkiewicz now permanently hangs in Portcullis House, Westminster. Oleg