Elections to the Labour Party's Shadow Cabinet (more formally, its "Parliamentary Committee") took place on 19 November 1981. There were 15 posts, rather than 12 as in previous years. In addition to the 15 members elected, the Leader ( Michael Foot), Deputy Leader (

Denis Healey Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey, (30 August 1917 – 3 October 2015) was a British Labour Party (UK), Labour politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979 and as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970; he ...

), Labour Chief Whip ( Michael Cocks), Labour Leader in the House of Lords ( Lord Peart), and Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party (

Jack Dormand John Donkin Dormand, Baron Dormand of Easington (27 August 1919 – 18 December 2003) was a British educationist and Labour Party politician from the coal mining area of Easington in County Durham, in the north-east of England. He was Memb ...

) were automatically members. Of the 12 incumbent members, 10 were re-elected. Tony Benn, who was the top loser in 1980 automatically took the Bill Rodgers when the latter left the party to create the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

. He lost again in this election. It is unclear whether Roy Mason lost re-election or did not stand. The results of the election, though incomplete, are below Tony Benn had narrowly failed to defeat

for the deputy leadership of the Labour Party a few months earlier. Shortly before the shadow cabinet election, Benn had broken with Michael Foot and the shadow cabinet by committing a future Labour Government to nationalising oil and gas assets without compensation, despite not having authorisation to do so. Benn then refused to commit to supporting collective shadow cabinet responsibility, causing Foot to announce a week prior to the ballot that he was personally opposed to Benn being re-elected to the shadow cabinet '' The Glasgow Herald'' reported Benn planned to use the contest to renew his campaign against Healey, and that Foot believed that Benn ultimately would challenge him for the leadership of the Labour Party. While Benn failed to be elected to the shadow cabinet, the size of his vote was reported as being a blow to Michael Foot, given that he had withdrawn his support from him and encouraged party colleagues to do likewise. Benn claimed to be pleased with the size of his vote, which represented a quarter of the parliamentary party, which he claimed was twice as great as he had expected. ''The Glasgow Herald'' noted that other than Foot, only five of those elected could be described as "Left-wingers". In contrast 8 members, including deputy leader Healey, were identified as "Right-wingers" and three members (Dunwoody, Millan and Shore) who were "Centre-to-right".

References

{{John Smith

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 10 – Salvadoran Civil War: The FMLN launches its first major offensiv ...

Labour Party Shadow Cabinet election Labour Party Shadow Cabinet election