Anniversary of 1997 New Labour election landslide

Chris Hallam (Image: Chris Hallam)

Twenty-five years ago, Britons awoke to find the political landscape of the nation transformed by an electoral earthquake.

That the Conservative government which had ruled Britain for eighteen years had been swept from power by Tony Blair’s New Labour was not in itself that surprising.

The Tories had been deeply unpopular for almost five years by that point and most people had been expecting them to lose the General Election held on May 1st 1997.

But the scale of the result was astonishing. Privately, New Labour’s leaders had expected to win a parliamentary majority of around forty, similar to that won by Margaret Thatcher for the Tories back in 1979. In fact, they won a majority of 179, greater than that won by any party since 1935 and greater than any achieved in the six General Elections held since. “A new dawn has broken, has it not?” the incoming Prime Minister, Tony Blair declared.

He was the youngest PM of the entire 20th century: his 44th birthday fell a few days after the result.

The Tory Party’s parliamentary strength had been reduced to less than half of its previous number. For many, the most surprising result came from Enfield Southgate where the Defence Secretary, Michael Portillo was defeated.

For years, the youthful right-winger had been seen as the most likely candidate to lead the Tories back to Thatcherism after any election defeat.

Now he was out. He would return, but his political career never really recovered from this setback. In 2005, he would quit politics forever in favour of a career in TV.

Elsewhere, the former Chancellor Norman Lamont was ejected.

Although the economy was doing well by 1997, neither he nor the Tories had been forgiven for the economic collapse of ‘Black Wednesday’ a few months after the Tories’ surprise 1992 election win.

Lamont had fallen out with his old friend, John Major and left the cabinet in 1993.

Major had, despite everything, clung onto power in the face of numerous leadership crises since 1992, most of them caused by the Tories’ growing divisions over Europe.

The Conservatives had also been harmed by sleaze. In the usually strong Tory seat of Tatton, the former TV news correspondent, Martin Bell, stood as a special anti-sleaze candidate and defeated the sitting MP and former minister, Neil Hamilton who had been harmed by allegations of corruption.

In Putney, there had been ugly scenes where David Mellor, another former minister and friend of Major’s who had resigned as Heritage Secretary after revelations that he had had an extramarital affair was also defeated.

During his concession speech, Mellor was openly taunted by Sir James Goldsmith, founder and leader of the UK Referendum Party. Goldsmith, already ill, died a few months later.

The calls for a referendum over Britain’s membership of the EU would grow louder in the years ahead.

In Exeter, never before a Labour seat, Labour candidate, Ben Bradshaw won substantially after a homophobic campaign led by the Tory candidate against him backfired.

In Clwyd South, a young Tory journalist, Boris Johnson lost heavily. In Stafford, another old Etonian, David Cameron also lost to Labour.

Elsewhere, the Tories did better. In Maidenhead, Theresa May became an MP for the first time after winning the seat for the Conservatives. Sir Peter Emery, the Conservative MP for Honiton for thirty years also captured the new constituency of East Devon.

Privately, some within Labour, such as left-wing MPs, Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone and Jeremy Corbyn felt New Labour had conceded too much ground to the Tories in pursuit of power.

New Labour achieved another massive General Election win 2001 and won again very substantially in 2005.

Thereafter, the party’s support began to ebb away in the wake of the Iraq War and the global financial crisis.

They have not won power again since.