Sheffield Rally

[3] The rally was modelled partly on American presidential campaign conventions, with sound and light performances on the stage and celebrity endorsements played on a large video screen.

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 with titles such as "The next Home Secretary" (in reference to Roy Hattersley) and "The next Prime Minister" (in reference to Kinnock); Labour had been in opposition for 13 years and had lost the previous three consecutive general elections, in 1979, 1983 and 1987, to the Conservatives.

"[6] Polls conducted in the final week of the campaign continued to show either the two main parties neck-and-neck or Labour slightly ahead, as they had done prior to the rally.

He noted that the BBC's political editor John Cole had indicated he had been impressed in his live reporting of the rally and it was only retrospectively that it started to be portrayed as showing Kinnock as "overconfident and cocky".

[11] The event is often mentioned in relation to other purported political miscalculations or gaffes, such as the Paul Wellstone memorial during the 2002 United States Senate election in Minnesota.