Introduction

The personnel of Shadow Cabinets are, or at least should be, constantly prepared to assume the mantle of government. It is therefore surprising to discover that the Shadow Cabinet is a subject upon which there is remarkably little published material. The expression ‘Shadow Cabinet’ is a popular one, though it is now being used with increasing regularity by the political parties, the press and political commentators. Technically, the Conservative Party uses the term ‘Consultative Committee’ and the Labour Party, ‘Parliamentary Committee’. Similarly, however, the Conservative Leader allocates responsibility to senior and junior Front Bench spokesmen, so that Sir Alec Douglas-Home’s Shadow Cabinet in February 1965 numbered twenty-one persons with thirty-six Front Bench spokesmen and ten whips. An equivalent list issued by Mr Edward Heath in October 1965 contained seventy-two names, truly a ‘Shadow Government’.