# 2010 Labour Party Shadow Cabinet election

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The Commons members of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) elected 19 members of the Shadow Cabinet from among their number in 2010. This follows the Labour Party's defeat at the 2010 general election, after which the party formed the Official Opposition in the United Kingdom.
A separate election for Opposition Chief Whip, an ex officio member of the Shadow Cabinet, happened at the same time. Rosie Winterton was unopposed in that election; she would serve for the remainder of the Parliament. The results of the Shadow Cabinet election were announced on 7 October 2010, hours after the balloting closed.
The PLP voted to abolish Shadow Cabinet elections at a meeting on 5 July 2011, before the National Executive Committee and the Party Conference followed suit. As a result, the 2010 Shadow Cabinet election was the last.

## Background

Shadow Cabinet elections typically happened near the beginning of a session, but were delayed until after the leadership election, which ended with the announcement of Ed Miliband as winner on 25 September. Nominations were open from 26 to 29 September, and voting occurred from 4 to 7 October. The leader may choose to assign Shadow Cabinet portfolios to non-members, who are considered to "attend" Shadow Cabinet.

## Rule changes

On 8 September 2010, the PLP voted to continue electing the Shadow Cabinet and made various changes to the rules for such elections:
* Shadow Cabinet elections will be held every two years, rather than every year.
* The Chief Whip will once again be separately elected, reversing a change made before the 1995 Shadow Cabinet election that allowed the Leader of the Labour Party to hand out the position as with any other Shadow Cabinet portfolio. Now, the Chief Whip will be elected by the PLP for the duration of a Parliament.
* For a PLP member's ballot to be valid, it must contain votes for at least six women and six men, up from four.
* The Shadow Cabinet will no longer be the Parliamentary Committee when the party is in opposition. Instead, the latter will be a backbench group just as when the party is in government.

## Ex officio members

The following are also members of the Shadow Cabinet by virtue of the office listed:
* Leader of the Labour Party (Ed Miliband)
* Deputy Leader (Harriet Harman)
* Opposition Chief Whip in the Commons (Rosie Winterton)
* Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords (Baroness Royall of Blaisdon)
* Opposition Chief Whip in the Lords (Lord Bassam of Brighton)

## Candidates

Shortly after the 2010 general election, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling announced that he would not be a candidate in the elections, thus ending more than 20 years of frontbench service. In August, both Shadow Justice Secretary Jack Straw and Shadow Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth announced their retirements from the frontbench. On 29 September, the day nominations closed, Shadow Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced he would step down from the Shadow Cabinet, having been defeated for the Labour leadership days earlier by his brother, Ed.
Forty-nine Labour MPs stood for election, and the results were as follows:
| Colour key | Retained in the Shadow Cabinet |
| Colour key | Joined the Shadow Cabinet |
| Colour key | Voted out of the Shadow Cabinet |
| Rank | Candidate | Constituency | Votes | Subsequent portfolio |
| 1 | Yvette Cooper | Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford | 232 | Shadow Foreign Secretary |
| 2 | John Healey | Wentworth and Dearne | 192 | Shadow Secretary of State for Health |
| 3 | Ed Balls | Morley and Outwood | 179 | Shadow Home Secretary |
| 4† | Andy Burnham | Leigh | 165 | Shadow Secretary of State for Education; Election Co-ordinator |
| 4† | Angela Eagle | Wallasey | 165 | Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury |
| 6 | Alan Johnson | Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle | 163 | Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer |
| 7† | Douglas Alexander | Paisley and Renfrewshire South | 160 | Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions |
| 7† | Jim Murphy | East Renfrewshire | 160 | Shadow Secretary of State for Defence |
| 9 | Tessa Jowell | Dulwich and West Norwood | 152 | Shadow Minister for the Olympics |
| 10 | Caroline Flint | Don Valley | 139 | Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government |
| 11 | John Denham | Southampton Itchen | 129 | Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills |
| 12† | Hilary Benn | Leeds Central | 128 | Shadow Leader of the House of Commons |
| 12† | Sadiq Khan | Tooting | 128 | Shadow Secretary of State for Justice; Shadow Lord Chancellor |
| 14 | Mary Creagh | Wakefield | 119 | Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs |
| 15 | Ann McKechin | Glasgow North | 117 | Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland |
| 16 | Maria Eagle | Garston and Halewood | 107 | Shadow Secretary of State for Transport |
| 17 | Meg Hillier | Hackney South and Shoreditch | 106 | Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change |
| 18 | Ivan Lewis | Bury South | 104 | Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport |
| 19 | Liam Byrne | Birmingham Hodge Hill | 100 | Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office |
| 20 | Emily Thornberry | Islington South and Finsbury | 99 | |
| 21 | Peter Hain | Neath | 97 | Shadow Secretary of State for Wales |
| 22 | Fiona Mactaggart | Slough | 88 | |
| 23 | Barbara Keeley | Worsley and Eccles South | 87 | |
| 24 | Vernon Coaker | Gedling | 85 | |
| 25 | Pat McFadden | Wolverhampton South East | 84 | |
| 26† | Helen Goodman | Bishop Auckland | 80 | |
| 26† | David Lammy | Tottenham | 80 | |
| 28 | Stephen Timms | East Ham | 79 |
| 29 | Chris Bryant | Rhondda | 77 | |
| 30 | Shaun Woodward | St Helens South and Whiston | 72 | Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland |
| 31 | Gareth Thomas | Harrow West | 71 | |
| 32 | Kevan Jones | North Durham | 68 | |
| 33 | Kevin Brennan | Cardiff West | 64 | |
| 34 | Roberta Blackman-Woods | City of Durham | 63 | |
| 35 | Diane Abbott | Hackney North and Stoke Newington | 59 | |
| 36 | Stephen Twigg | Liverpool West Derby | 55 | |
| 37 | Tom Harris | Glasgow South | 54 | |
| 38 | Ben Bradshaw | Exeter | 53 | |
| 39 | Iain Wright | Hartlepool | 43 | |
| 40 | Barry Gardiner | Brent North | 41 | |
| 41 | David Hanson | Delyn | 38 | |
| 42 | Ian Lucas | Wrexham | 34 | |
| 43 | Wayne David | Caerphilly | 30 | |
| 44 | Huw Irranca-Davies | Ogmore | 28 | |
| 45 | Chris Leslie | Nottingham East | 26 | |
| 46 | Robert Flello | Stoke-on-Trent South | 15 | |
| 47 | Mike Gapes | Ilford South | 12 | |
| 48 | Alun Michael | Cardiff South and Penarth | 11 | |
| 49 | Eric Joyce | Falkirk | 10 | |

### Notes

    † Multiple candidates tied for position.
* ↑ It is unclear from the sources (see note 2, below) whether Healey was a full Shadow Cabinet member before the election or merely in attendance, in which case he would be listed as joining rather than having been retained in the Shadow Cabinet.
* ↑ Khan was listed on the Labour Party's and Parliament's frontbench lists as attending Shadow Cabinet rather than as a full member. The Shadow Cabinet list at Labour's website, produced earlier than the others, makes no distinction between full members and attendees.
* 1 2 Peter Hain and Shaun Woodward were appointed to the Shadow Cabinet by Ed Miliband to serve as the Shadow Welsh and Northern Irish Secretaries, respectively.

## Chief Whip election

At the same time they elect members of the Shadow Cabinet, the Commons PLP will elect the Opposition Chief Whip. The incumbent Chief Whip, Nick Brown, announced on 29 September that he would not be a candidate, writing in a letter to the new leader, Ed Miliband, that though he had intended to stand for election to the post, he was acceding to Miliband's request that he stand down. According to the BBC, after the announcement, Jim Fitzpatrick, who had also intended to stand for the post, withdrew his candidacy, and Miliband asked Rosie Winterton to stand, and she did so unopposed.