Together, the media and politicians conspire in the myth that every general election is of historic importance. This myth serves to both feed their own sense of importance and, more honourably, to enthuse the voters, making them aware of the necessity of playing their part in the electoral process. And some general elections, indeed, are historic. Who can deny that the elections of 1906, 1945 and 1979 brought to power governments which, for better or worse, altered the British social, economic and political landscape in highly significant ways?
But where does this leave 1997?
The scale of Labour’s victory, the end of eighteen years of Conservative rule, and some of the Government’s policies – most notably its constitutional and devolution agenda – certainly places Tony Blair’s first victory in the ‘highly significant’ category. Nonetheless, it is the election that is just about to take place, rather than the one of four years ago, that could well acquire the ‘historic’ tag. After all, Labour has achieved landslide victories before – in 1945 and 1966 – but it has never enjoyed two full successive terms in office. And it is this prize for which the party is now fighting.
The opinion polls certainly bode well for Labour. Other than the ‘blip’ when the Conservatives took the lead in the wake of the fuel crisis, the party has enjoyed significant leads over the Opposition throughout this Parliament. And, as MORI’s Roger Mortimore argues, while other governments and Prime Ministers have, briefly, enjoyed the levels of popularity recorded for Blair and Labour since 1997, none have managed to secure such sustained degrees of support.
Opinion polls are, of course, not the same as real votes and, during this Parliament, Labour’s record here has been patchier. The party lost the only truly national election held since 1997, the 1999 European Parliament elections, and its performance in the 1999 and 2000 local elections was poor (although not as poor as that of the Tories during the depths of Thatcher and Major’s unpopularity).
In elections to the devolved institutions, Labour also failed to impress. It did best in the vote for the Scottish Parliament, poorly in the Welsh Assembly poll, and shockingly in the London Assembly and Mayoral races.
Parliamentary by-elections, however, offer a more positive picture. In Labour-held seats, the party has seen its vote fall significantly as turnout slumped, but in Tory marginals, like Beckenham and Eddisbury, the governing party actually succeeded in giving the Opposition a run for its money. Perhaps most significantly of all, Labour has not lost a single Westminster by-election since it came to power. No other government in recent memory can claim to have achieved this feat. This record is particularly impressive when contrasted with the huge swings which ousted the Tories from some of their safest seats in by-elections during the Thatcher-Major years. There’s been no Eastbourne or Christchurch, no Wirral South or Mid Staffordshire during Tony Blair’s time as Prime Minister.
The 2001 election is nowhere near being in the bag for Labour. The local and European elections of the past couple of years demonstrate that the party will have to undertake a huge effort to both get out its ‘core’ vote – whether these abstentions were due to satisfaction, apathy or disaffection with the Government – as well as holding on to the floating voters who were won over in 1997. Previous Labour governments, like Harold Wilson’s in 1970, believed they were heading for re-election, only to be soundly beaten at the ballot box.
Nonetheless, it is the historical precedents which best show why Labour has, at least, a strong chance of breaking the spell which has prevented it from winning two full consecutive terms and, more crucially, succeeding in its mission to bring lasting change to Britain.
Labour is now enjoying its sixth period in office since the party’s formation. None has lasted more than six years. Compare that with the eighteen notched up by the Tories from 1979 to 1997 or the thirteen they sustained during the 1950s and early 1960s. With two exceptions, every Labour government has suffered periods of deep, sustained unpopularity. The two exceptions are Tony Blair’s Government and the 1924 minority Labour Government, which is barely comparable with the others due to its short time in office.
The 1929-31 Labour Government endured great unpopularity almost from the outset and, certainly, until it collapsed in 1931. Clement Attlee’s Government, like Blair’s, did not lose a single by-election, but it lagged in the polls and was trounced in local elections during its mid-term.
Attlee’s poll difficulties, however, were far less acute than those of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. Labour managed to lose the Leyton by-election – which, given the size of its parliamentary majority, it could ill afford to do – just a couple of months after coming to power. And, while Wilson managed to turn his precarious grip on power into a 97-seat majority in 1966, the four years between that landslide and Ted Heath’s victory in 1970 were marked by huge Tory poll leads, humiliating by-election defeats and routs for Labour in local elections. Although not as bad, the 1974-1979 Labour Government also faced deep mid-term unpopularity, so much so that its small parliament majority was completely eroded and it had to rely on Liberal support to keep it in power.
So what has made the difference this time? Three factors place this Government in a stronger position as it seeks re-election than any of its Labour predecessors.
First, Gordon Brown’s handling of the economy continues to be the party’s electoral trump card. Every Labour government before this one has seen itself beset by severe economic difficulties around two years after coming to power. In 1931, Labour faced the effects of the Great Depression. In 1947, Attlee was hit by a sterling crisis, followed by a devaluation two years later. This pattern was repeated in 1966 when another run on the pound led to devaluation in late 1967. Finally, the Callaghan Government was rocked by the IMF crisis in 1976.
The effects of these economic difficulties were devastating to Labour’s plans for government and, cumulatively, to the party’s reputation. Labour governments, it seemed, were economically incompetent, and their tenure marked by slow growth, sharp early rises in public spending followed by equally swift cuts, and a general atmosphere of crisis. And whatever excuses the party had – world economic difficulties in 1931 and 1974 or the mess inherited from the Conservatives in 1964 and 1974 – Labour’s economic record severely dented the party’s overall image.
By contrast with Labour’s past record, Brown’s is impressive. Two years of spending restraint and the decision to give the Bank of England independence allowed the Government to begin large increases in investment in services such as health, education and transport with the financial markets barely batting an eyelid.
Second, despite the media’s incessant focus on the rivalries between New Labour’s key players, this Government has not been marked by the kind of feuding – both ideological and personal – which marked previous Labour administrations. Despite the occasional backbench revolt (most notably over welfare reform), there have been no high-level resignations from the Government on matters of policy and no deep clashes over the party’s overall direction. There are thus no parallels to the in-fighting between Ernest Bevin and Herbert Morrison or Nye Bevan and Hugh Gaitskell under Attlee, the tensions between George Brown and Wilson, the plotting of the Gaitskellites, or the battles over trade union reform in the 1960s. Moreover, there is also no situation under Blair analogous to the kind of open split between left and right which marked the Wilson-Callaghan Government in the late 1970s.
Finally, Blair’s Government has been aided by the public’s continuing distrust of the Tories and the unpopularity of William Hague. The Conservatives have traditionally managed to use their time out of power to swiftly recover and make themselves attractive once again to the voters. Hague, however, has tacked further to the right, amplifying those stances which were already most unpopular with the electorate.
Past Labour governments, moreover, have tended to lose office not due to a sharp decline in their support amongst the party’s supporters, but because the Conservatives have succeeded in squeezing the Liberal vote, thus consolidating the non-Labour vote behind their candidates. For at least so long as William Hague and his brand of right-wing populism continues to dominate Conservative politics, however, there seems little chance that the Tories will succeed in repeating this feat. Indeed, the Tories have spent most of the past four years attempting to rally those most right-wing elements of the Conservative base which either stayed at home in 1997 or defected to anti-European parties like the Referendum Party.
Alongside the Conservatives, Tony Blair identified complacency as Labour’s primary enemy in 1997. Elections, moreover, have a habit of being far less predictable than many believe: few expected Ted Heath to win in 1970, Harold Wilson to pull off a squeaker in 1974, or John Major to take the Tories to an historic fourth term in 1992. But, having learned the lessons of his party’s predecessors as Prime Minister, Tony Blair must be acutely aware that he is closer than any of them to winning the prize which eluded each of them: leading Labour to five more years in power.