The opening words of Tony Blair’s victory speech outside 10 Downing Street in 1997 ring just as true now as they did then: ‘A new dawn has broken, has it not?’ The 1997 election result (Table 1) heralded a new, modern era of British politics. The scale of Labour’s victory is down to a range of factors that were in its favour.
For many, the key change that Labour made in the run up to the 1997 election was embracing a more centrist position politically. Despite Neil Kinnock slowly returning the party to a less radical stance since the far-left position of the 1983 election, there was still a feeling among some in the Labour Party that more work needed to be done to make it truly appeal to the entirety of the electorate.
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