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“... to worker rights and social justice. ‘You might be interested to see,’ he records saying to a Shadow Cabinet meeting on 31 July 1971, ‘the address on which my father’ – William Wedgwood Benn, a Liberal, then Labour MP, created Viscount Stansgate in 1941 – ‘fought the election in 1906: cheap food, reform and prosperity for the Port of ...”

“... Rebecca Long-Bailey, the left’s candidate to replace Corbyn, has already been sacked from the shadow cabinet. The party’s National Executive Committee has a majority defined ostensibly by loyalty to Starmer, but more concretely by opposition to Corbynism. The Socialist Campaign Group of left-wing MPs, on whose behalf Corbyn stood for the leadership ...”

“... a leader of the opposition, usually the leader of the largest party outside the government, and a shadow cabinet. There is an upper house, the Senate, which resembles an elected House of Lords, but has more powers. And, of course, the queen is the head of state. The six states – the former autonomous British colonies – have their own constitutions ...”

“... one of them, Margaret Beckett, has described herself as a ‘moron’ for doing so.) His shadow cabinet, devastated by a series of staged resignations, is now a patchwork of very young MPs and very old ones, many of them doing more than one job. After 29 years in Parliament the 81-year-old Paul Flynn has made his front bench debut as both ...”

“... Health in the Macmillan Government (Macmillan, according to his biographer Alistair Horne, had the Cabinet chairs moved so that he would not have to look at Powell’s staring eyes) – and he never held office again. There was a shock of incredulity when he appeared as one of three contenders for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1965 and only 15 ...”

“... in the first place, manifests itself in the power of the leader (when in Opposition) to choose his shadow cabinet, and when in Downing Street, to hire and fire almost at will. This inheritance is magnified by the steadily growing power of the prime minister, no longer primus inter pares, which has been observed since the end of the war – a process which ...”

“... He also lacks the experience. Corbyn at PMQs? Corbyn handling the press lobby? Corbyn managing the shadow cabinet? To see these as relics of the old way of doing politics is to mistake the range of policy possibilities for the range of institutional ones. It may well be true that much of what Corbyn stands for – including a fairer tax system, greater ...”

“... not least because the bureaucracy’s decision-making process is not top-down. Unlike the British cabinet, the American cabinet decides nothing; it is merely a collection of executive department heads. Policy is made not with a single order handed down from on high, but through horse-trading and political jockeying in ...”

“... in April 1951 and which ended (with Bevan but not with the Bevanites) only when Bevan became Shadow Foreign Secretary in 1957; third, Gaitskell’s first nine months as Leader and his heavy preoccupation, during that time, with the Russians whose leaders, Khrushchev and Bulganin, made their first visit to London, and with the events that led to the ...”

“... assiduously dismantling. As always when a course of action is urged on him by his enemies in the cabinet, whom he describes as ‘bastards’, nice Mr Major rolls over on his back and pants happily in agreement. The Queen’s Speech makes it clear that immigration and political asylum will be an issue at the general election. Judging from the predictions of ...”

“... twice on that occasion, first against the denationalisation of road haulage by Mr Churchill’s Cabinet and then in a sharp attack on the hypocrisy of the Bevanites, who had swept to victory in the previous day’s NEC elections. It was a bitter, ugly and exhausting Conference. Herbert Morrison and Hugh Dalton, who had helped to carry the Labour Party ...”

“... and tentative. He disturbed many by countenancing promises by the Viceroy of India and the Labour Cabinet of further advances towards native representation in Indian central government. Critics of his leadership were consequently able to obtain considerable rank-and-file support. Centres of opposition included the diehards (the ...”

“... the Europeans at bay and enable it to remain a satellite of the United States. Maybe Hague’s Shadow Cabinet was in agreement with the chief economist of the Institute of Directors, Graeme Leach, who informed us during the election that God is against a single European currency. Evidently God is an extreme Thatcherite, as is Mr Leach, who believes ...”

“... Neil Kinnock is undeniably neither Oxbridge nor an intellectual. Nor are many members of his shadow cabinet – or, indeed, of the present Parliamentary Labour Party. There is at least room for debate about whether this is a good or a bad thing. Moreover, the reasons for the trend are by no means easy to identify. Should he feel inclined, Mr Kinnock ...”

“... Party. Both focus on high politics, and in particular the way the members of the first Labour cabinet navigated the challenge of forming a government. There are some differences in emphasis and approach. Clark’s account is structured more straightforwardly as a series of short biographies, preceded by a history of the Labour Party up to 1924. Torrance ...”