Foot resigned days after the election and was succeeded as leader on 2 October by Neil Kinnock, who had been tipped from the outset to be Labour's choice of new leader.

His father Gordon Herbert Kinnock was a coal miner who suffered from dermatitis and had to find work as a labourer ; and his mother Mary Kinnock was a district nurse.

Although Kinnock had come from the Tribune left of the party, he parted company with many of his former allies after his appointment to the shadow cabinet.

All this meant that Kinnock had made plenty of enemies on the left by the time he was elected as leader, though a substantial number of former Bennites gave him strong backing.

Mandelson and his team had revolutionised Labour's communications – a transformation symbolised by a party election broadcast popularly known as " Kinnock: The Movie ".

Kinnock also blamed his defeat on the other newspapers who had backed the Tories in the run-up to the election.

However, the traditional Labour supporting Daily Mirror had backed Kinnock in the 1987 election and again in 1992.

Since Major's election as leader, Kinnock spent the end of 1990 and most of 1991 putting pressure on Major to hold the election that year, but Major had held out and insisted that there would be no general election in 1991.

Biden was elected Vice President of the United States in 2008 ; on 18 January 2009 Glenys Kinnock revealed on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that she and Neil Kinnock had received a personal invitation from Biden to attend the inauguration of Barack Obama and Biden on 20 January 2009 at the United States Capitol in Washington.

In the period since Benn's defeat in Bristol, Michael Foot had stepped down after the general election in June 1983 ( which saw Labour return a mere 209 MPs ) and was succeeded in October of that year by Neil Kinnock.

It showed support with the Labour Party in the UK, starting with the 1992 general election, when Neil Kinnock was attempting for the second time to return Labour to government for the first time since they had been ousted from power in 1979.

Following the leadership of Neil Kinnock and John Smith, the party under the New Labour brand attempted to widen its electoral appeal and, by the 1997 general election, had made significant gains in the upper and middle classes.

The previous two party leaders, Neil Kinnock and John Smith, had begun efforts to modernise the party as a strategy for electoral success, before Smith died in 1994.

Alastair Campbell was the Labour Party's Press Secretary and led a strategy to neutralise the influence of the press ( which had weakened former Labour leader Neil Kinnock ) and create allies for the party.

The 1983 general election had given the Conservatives a triple-digit commons majority, but within months a strong challenge to their power-and to the challenge posed by the Alliance-was showing as Labour leader Michael Foot stepped down and was succeeded by Neil Kinnock, whose modernisation of the party saw a dramatic rise in Labour fortunes in the opinion polls-some of which showed them ahead of the Conservatives and the Alliance by March 1984.

Owen blamed the SDP's demise on the reforms which had been taking place in the Labour Party since the election of Neil Kinnock as leader in 1983.

During the April 1992 election campaign, Owen writing in The Mail on Sunday newspaper advised voters to vote Liberal Democrat where they had a chance of victory and to vote Conservative rather than let Neil Kinnock become Prime Minister.

( She had sent a letter to Kinnock claiming to fully support his leadership bid and lobbying for the role, yet also sent an identical letter to Kinnock's opponent in the Labour leadership election, Roy Hattersley.

At one point in the proceedings, Kinnock and the shadow cabinet paraded to the stage from the back of the venue, passing through an increasingly enthusiastic audience, with the shadow cabinet being introduced by titles such as " The next Home Secretary " and " The next Prime Minister "; Labour had been in opposition for 13 years and had already lost three consecutive general elections to the Conservatives.

After the 1983 election, the right-winger Neil Kinnock, who had moved from the left of the party, was chosen as the new leader of Labour.

Alan Clark recorded in his diary that " For a few seconds Kinnock had her cornered ... But then he had an attack of wind, gave her time to recover.

In 2012 Kinnock made a cameo appearance as himself in an episode of the UK TV comedy drama Stella.

After the 1987 general election, Neil Kinnock appointed him Shadow Minister for Personal Social Services from 1987, in which role he served until 1992.

Clements resigned as editor in 1982 to become a political adviser to Foot ( by now Labour leader ), a role he continued under Foot's successor as Labour leader, Neil Kinnock.

Taaffe characterised Neil Kinnock in this way: “ The bourgeois recognized early that Kinnock ’ s role in attacking Liverpool and the miners was an attempt to sanitise the Labour Party, ridding it of all that ‘ socialist nonsense .’” Taaffe went on to predict “ an enormous recoil towards the left ” within the Labour Party.

He was part of the reforming leadership of Neil Kinnock and in the role progressed a wide-ranging agenda including reform of internal rules, a shift towards a national membership scheme, the internal Policy Review and the expulsion of the entryist Militant Tendency.

After Foot's resignation following Labour's landslide defeat in the 1983 general election, Clements continued in a similar role for the new leader, Neil Kinnock, although his title was officially that of " executive officer ".

He left his role in October 2009 as part of a reshuffle and was succeeded by Glenys Kinnock.

In the series " Stella " ( s01e03 ), Neil Kinnock chants Oggy, Oggy, Oggy at the funeral of ' Dic the Kick '.

In Episode 4 (" Animals ") of the British sitcom Men Behaving Badly, Series 1, Dermot ( played by Harry Enfield ) says to Gary ( played by Martin Clunes ), " There she was, just standing there, making Michelle Pfeiffer look like Neil Kinnock.

Calling himself a ' unionist ', Kinnock was one of six south Wales Labour MPs to campaign against devolution on centralist, essentially British-nationalist grounds.

Kinnock attacked Militant and their conduct in Liverpool in one of the best remembered passages of any post-war British political speech:

Kinnock gained attention in the United States in 1987 when it was discovered that then-Senator Joe Biden of Delaware plagiarized one of Kinnock's speeches during his 1988 presidential campaign in a speech at a Democratic debate in Iowa in August 1987.

Kinnock was appointed one of Britain's two members of the European Commission, which he served first as Transport Commissioner under President Jacques Santer, in early 1995 ; marking the end of his 25 years in UK parliament.

After graduating in English from Hertford College, Oxford in 1995, one of her first jobs was working in the press offices of Labour leaders Neil Kinnock and John Smith.

Formerly named the Bernt Carlsson Trust, One World Action was founded by Glenys Kinnock on December 21, 1989 – exactly one year after UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, was killed in the Pan Am Flight 103 crash.

As one of three MPs associated with Militant, Nellist became a target for the majority element around Neil Kinnock within the Labour Party.

This was directed by Hugh Hudson and featured Kinnock's 1985 conference speech, and shots of him and Glenys walking on the Great Orme in Llandudno ( so emphasising his appeal as a family man and associating him with images of Wales away from the coalmining communities where he grew up ), and a speech to that year's Welsh Labour Party conference asking why he was the " first Kinnock in a thousand generations " to go to university.

Hobsbawm supported Neil Kinnock's transformation of the British Labour Party from 1983 ( the party received just 28 % of the vote in that year's elections, just 2 % more than than the Social Democratic Party / Liberal Alliance ), and, though not close to Kinnock, came to be referred to as " Neil Kinnock's Favourite Marxist ".

She supported John Prescott in the Labour deputy-leadership election in 1988 ( against Eric Heffer and the incumbent Roy Hattersley ), leaving the Socialist Campaign Group, along with Margaret Beckett, as a result of Tony Benn's decision to challenge Neil Kinnock for the leadership.

Many trade unions sponsored it as did the Indian Workers Association ( then a large organisation ), and many members of the Labour Party and MPs such as Neil Kinnock.

In Moscow, the British traitor Kim Philby drafts a memorandum for the General Secretary ( Soviet president ) stating that, if the Labour Party wins the next general election in the UK ( scheduled for sometime in the subsequent eighteen months ), the " hard left " of the party will oust the moderate, populist Neil Kinnock in favour of a radical new leader who will adopt a true Marxist-Leninist manifesto, including the expulsion of all American forces from England and the country's withdrawal from and repudiation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO ).

Other non-fiction works followed: Gotcha, the Media, the Government and the Falklands Crisis ( 1983 ), The Making of Neil Kinnock ( 1984 ), Selling Hitler ( 1986 ), an investigation of the Hitler Diaries scandal, and Good and Faithful Servant ( 1990 ), a study of Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher's press secretary.

He was replaced by his equally Bennite protege Nigel Williamson ( editor 1984-87 ), who surprised everyone by arguing for a ' realignment of the left ' and took the paper into the ' soft left ' camp, supporting Kinnock, a long-time Tribune contributor and onetime board member, as Labour leader against the Bennites.

The next two editors, Phil Kelly ( editor 1987-91 ), and Paul Anderson ( editor 1991-93 ), took much the same line though both clashed with Kinnock, particularly over his decision to abandon Labour's non-nuclear defence policy.

The song also got help with funding and donations from celebrities such as HRH Prince Charles, ( he also requested a copy to be sent to Buckingham Palace ), The then Prime Minister Mrs Margaret Thatcher, The Labour Party Leadrer Niel Kinnock M. P, and Sir Paul McCartney, and the single was mixed at Abbey Road Recording Studios.

( he also requested a copy to be sent to Buckingham Palace ), The then Prime Minister Mrs Margaret Thatcher, The Labour Party Leadrer Niel Kinnock M. P, and Sir Paul McCartney, and the single was mixed at Abbey Road Recording Studios.

Political patrons include Lord Kinnock ( Lab ), Lord Howe of Aberavon ( Con ), Lord Taverne ( Lib Dem ), Dr Nick Palmer ( Lab ) and Ian Taylor ( Con ).