But it was all slim pickings and even the Labour front bench seemed less than engaged.
Ms Champion insists she is unlikely to be on the shadow front bench anytime soon.
BBC: Rotherham MP Sarah Champion says 'not career politician'
The first Chevrolet ever built, the 1911 Series C Classic Six, came with a front bench seat.
FORBES: End Of An Auto Era: Saying Goodbye To The Bench Seat
MPs since 1997, the Conservative Party does not have many famous names left on its front bench.
ECONOMIST: Is Michael Howard, of all people, renouncing Thatcherism?
Ms Harman sat on the front bench just in front of Mr Dromey as he made his speech.
Shadow constitutional reform minister Wayne David said the majority of the opposition front bench supported votes at 16.
Susan Kramer steps down from the front bench team to lead the party's campaign against expansion of Heathrow Airport.
"If they were a football team, " she said of the new Conservative leader's front bench, "they'd be Accrington Stanley".
Confounding those who thought that scandal had ended his political career, he returned to his party's front bench in 1975.
His decision follows that of Lord Strathclyde to quit as Lords leader after 14 years on the Tory front bench.
The Tories' two most effective front bench performers are the shadow chancellor, Michael Howard, and the shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin.
She resigned from the front bench twice whilst in opposition accusing Labour spin-doctors ("dark forces") and the press of hounding her.
The libertarian wing of the Conservative Party would probably have voted against the proposals, cutting them adrift from the front bench.
ECONOMIST: The government fights to pass anti-terrorism powers
And not just because one of its practitioners, A. Salmond, was sitting on the front bench, supporting his Finance Secretary John Swinney.
The Conservatives did not have enough household names on the front bench.
He added that a return to the front bench for former shadow home secretary David Davis would "strengthen the Conservative team once more".
However, by his election in 1992 he had become a more focused constituency activist and moved seamlessly onto the front bench and eventually into government.
How Mr Miliband and his front bench team will handle that giant - tame it, provoke it or cosy up to it - remains to be seen.
But Labour's front bench cannot agree whether to apologise for giddy levels of spending before the credit crunch, or to boast about them, sapping the party's credibility.
Prior to last week's party conference, Labour's front bench in opposition was elected every two years, but the Labour leader is now able to choose the members himself.
Swinney himself stresses the need to be inclusive although he has declined to guarantee a front bench post to Alex Neil - or, indeed, anyone else at this stage.
Prior to a vote at last week's party conference, Labour's front bench in opposition was elected every two years, but Mr Miliband is now able to choose the members himself.
The front bench seat, once a fixture among large American cars, will be headed for oblivion when the final 2013 Chevrolet Impala rolls off the assembly line in the coming months.
FORBES: End Of An Auto Era: Saying Goodbye To The Bench Seat
Labour's Lord Falconer of Thoroton, speaking from the front bench for the first time since 2007, said that the government's response flew in the face of "pages and pages of evidence".
But his colleagues have warned Mr Ashdown that he can now take only one step at a time, and even then only after he has consulted first with his front bench.
What are you doing to take the argument to your front bench about what more they are going to do in the autumn statement to get our young people back to work?
Several big hitters who had been tipped to return to the front bench, including the former lord chancellor Lord Falconer and former home secretary Alan Johnson, do not appear in the new line-up.
The absence of both the prime minister and the chancellor from the front bench as Mr Prescott made his statement last week was a telling demonstration that there are few votes to be gained from restraining traffic.
Of course, Mr Letwin and Mr Cameron, both old Etonians, may simply be attempting to put some clear blue water between themselves and the more populist - or wilfully philistine depending on your point of view - elements on Labour's front bench.
"He knew he had to decide before the next election whether he was going to play a full role in the Labour Party, going to the front bench or whether he was going to leave, and it was a very difficult position for him, " he said.
应用推荐