Editing Roy Hattersley (section)

==Backbenches and retirement==
The [[1992 United Kingdom general election|1992 general election]] was held on 9 April 1992, but saw a fourth consecutive Labour defeat by the Conservatives. Kinnock announced his resignation as party leader on 13 April, and on the same day Hattersley announced his intention to resign from the deputy leadership of the party, with the intention of carrying on in their roles until the new leadership was elected that summer.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/13/newsid_2830000/2830895.stm|work=BBC News|title=1992: Labour's Neil Kinnock resigns|date=13 April 1992}}</ref> Hattersley supported his friend [[John Smith (Labour Party leader)|John Smith]] in the [[1992 Labour Party leadership election|leadership contest]], which Smith won in July that year.

In June 1993, Hattersley cancelled an appearance on TV panel show ''[[Have I Got News for You]]'' with very late notice, which infuriated the production staff and hosts, leading to Hattersley being replaced with a tub of [[lard]]. The programme compared Hattersley and the tub of lard, and claimed "they possessed the same qualities and were liable to give similar performances".<ref>{{cite magazine| magazine= [[The Spectator]]| title= I prefer the tub of lard| first= Leo |last=McKinstry| date= 13 September 2003| url= https://www.spectator.co.uk/2003/09/i-prefer-the-tub-of-lard/}}</ref>

In February 1994, Hattersley announced he would leave politics at the following [[1997 United Kingdom general election|general election]]. He was made a [[life peer]] as '''Baron Hattersley''', of [[Sparkbrook]] in the County of West Midlands on 24 November 1997.<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=54961|date=27 November 1997|page=13331}}</ref>

Hattersley was long regarded as being on the right-wing of the party, but with [[New Labour]] in power he found himself criticising a Labour government from the left, stating that "Blair's Labour Party is not the Labour Party I joined". He mentioned repeatedly that he would be supporting [[Gordon Brown]] as leader.<ref>{{cite news|title=Labour peer urges Blair to quit|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5183632.stm|access-date=27 September 2016|work=BBC News|date=16 July 2006}}</ref>

Hattersley retired from the [[House of Lords]] on 19 May 2017.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-hattersley/858|title=Lord Hattersley|publisher=[[UK Parliament]]}}</ref>