Deputy Leader of the Labour Party (UK) of the Party until a new leader is elected. If a vacancy in the leadership occurs while the Labour Party is in government, then the Cabinet, in consultation with the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party, chooses a new leader, who serves until a new leader is elected. To date, the only Deputy Leaders who have gone on to become the elected leader of the Labour Party are Clement Attlee and Michael Foot. Margaret Beckett briefly served as Labour leader following the unexpected death of John Smith in 1994. Harriet Harman was leader after Gordon Brown resigned in 2010
Timeline of the 2007 Labour Party (UK) leadership election denying that he was poised to challenge for the Labour leadership. In an interview with "The Times" the following day, he claimed that he could get a sufficient number of nominations to stand for the Labour leadership, but that the Labour Party did not "have the appetite" for such a contest. John Reid and John Hutton also announced their support for Brown, Reid going on to announce that he would be stepping down as Home Secretary upon the departure of Blair and Prescott. Writing in the "News of the World" on 6 May, Blair said that while David Cameron had