Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet (United Kingdom)

Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet (United Kingdom)

The Official Loyal Opposition Shadow Cabinet (usually known simply as the 'Shadow Cabinet') are, in British parliamentary practice, senior members of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition who scrutinise their corresponding ministers in the Government, develop alternative policies, and hold the Government to account for its actions and responses. Since May 2010, the Labour Party has been Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, and its leadership therefore forms the current Shadow Cabinet.

Not all Opposition frontbenchers are members of the Shadow Cabinet, which is composed of the most senior Opposition Members (usually around 20).

The Leader of the Opposition, the Opposition Chief Whip and Opposition Deputy Chief Whip are the only Members of the Official Opposition to draw remuneration for their Opposition roles in addition to their salaries as Members of Parliament.

Read more about Official Opposition Shadow Cabinet (United Kingdom):  Members of The Shadow Cabinet

Famous quotes containing the words official, opposition, shadow and/or cabinet:

    “Well, on the official record you’re my son. But on this post you’re just another trooper. You heard me tell the recruits what I need from them. Twice that I will expect from you.... You’ve chosen my way of life. I hope you have the guts enough to endure it. But put outa your mind any romantic ideas that it’s a way to glory. It’s a life of suffering and of hardship and uncompromising devotion to your oath and your duty.”
    —James Kevin McGuinness, and John Ford. Lt. Col. Kirby Yorke (John Wayne)

    “Commitment, by its nature, frees us from ourselves and, while it stands us in opposition to some, it joins us with others similarly committed. Commitment moves us from the mirror trap of the self absorbed with the self to the freedom of a community of shared values.”
    —Michael Lewis (late 20th century)

    “...A shadow now occasionally crossed my simple, sanguine, and life enjoying mind, a notion that I was never really going to accomplish those powerful literary works which would blow a noble trumpet to social generosity and noblesse oblige before the world. What? should I find myself always planning and never achieving ... a richly complicated and yet firmly unified novel?”
    —Sarah N. Cleghorn (1876–1959)

    “I suppose an entire cabinet of shells would be an expression of the whole human mind; a Flora of the whole globe would be so likewise, or a history of beasts; or a painting of all the aspects of the clouds. Everything is significant.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)