With the merry dance of shadow cabinet elections upon us, it’s a good time to look back on the last time Labour went through all this. There’s a useful list of all the results from the 1992 Parliament here, but here’s my summary of some of the more eyecatching outcomes:
1) Gordon Brown, from hero to zero (to Chancellor). In 1992, Gordon Brown came top of the shadow Cabinet rankings. By 1996, he had dropped to 14th. And bear in mind that the number of MPs standing fell from 53 to 26 over the same time. As we all know, though, he still made it to the Chancellorship.
2) Blair less popular than Prescott. Both Tony Blair and John Prescott stopped being involved in the shadow cabinet elections in 1994, as they had been elected party leader and deputy leader, respectively.
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