ABSTRACT
Shortly after the election Foot announced his resignation as leader. Four contestants entered the race for the succession, Neil Kinnock (from the centre-left), Roy Hattersley, Peter Shore (both from the right) and Eric Heffer (from the left). Tony Benn’s loss of his seat had removed the only serious threat to Kinnock from the left and the Welshman’s personal popularity, the weakness of the right and the widespread desire for an end to in-fighting all combined to accord him an easy victory over his main opponent, Hattersley: he beat him in all three sections of the electoral college, with no less than 71 per cent of the total vote. Hattersley, anticipating this, had concentrated his efforts on the deputy leadership with – in what was dubbed the ‘dream ticket’ – the active support of Kinnock. Hattersley crushed his main opponent and standard-bearer of the left, Michael Meacher, with surprising ease, by 67 per cent to 28 per cent.1 It was the first unequivocal evidence, in the wake of the electoral cataclysm, of a new yearning for peace and unity within the Party.
