"It was New Labour that won" - the New Labour myth. By Mike Hedges AM

In 1992, the Conservatives won their fourth consecutive general election, despite Labour having expectations that they would win. Immediately after the defeat, Neil Kinnock and Roy Hattersley resigned, to be replaced by John Smith and Margaret Beckett. 

Pundits were predicting that Labour could never win and that we would have a Conservative government for ever; then came Black Wednesday on September 16, 1992, which was a humiliation for the Conservative Government under John Major. It would never recover from the blow to its credibility, nor regain the trust of those voters it had shocked and alienated by putting up interest rates so high, even if only temporarily.

Economically, for the country, it was a release. Britain was in control of its monetary policy once more; the pound was devalued, helping to pull the economy out of recession and heralding a period of growth that lasted until the banking crisis of 2008.

A Gallup poll on the 7^th September 1992, the week before John Smith became leader, showed a Conservative lead of 2% but by 28^th September, after Black Wednesday, it had changed into a Labour lead of 7%. When John Smith died in May 1994, the Labour lead was consistently over 20% in the opinion polls, compared to the 12.5% it achieved under Tony Blair at the 1997 general election. 

The Conservatives lost economic credibility on Black Wednesday and defeat at the general election became inevitable for them, whoever the Labour leader was. However, if Black Wednesday was not enough, we also had a series of scandals; party disunity over the Europrean Union; and the desire of the electorate for change after 18 years of Tory rule.

Year	Labour vote	No of seats	% vote	Change in %vote	Turnout	Change in turnout
1997	13,518,167	413	43.4%	9%	71.3%	-6.4%
2001	10,724,953	403	40.7%	-2.7	59.4%	-11.9%
2005	9,552,436	355	35.2%	-5.5%	61.4%	2%
2010	8,606,517	258	29.0%	-6.2%	65.1%	3.7%
2015	9,347,304	232	30.4%	1.4	66.1	1.0%

As the table above shows, following the Labour landslide of 1997, there has been a continual loss of seats and - until 2010 - votes at every election. Turnout collapsed at the 2001 election and, despite making postal votes available on demand, turnout still is substantially under the 1997 figure.

From May 1994 until 2010, Labour was led by the two architects of New Labour: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. During that time, 158 seats were lost; 14.4% or approximately 1/3 of the 1997 vote was also lost; and turnout fell by approximately 6%.

In summary: New Labour inherited a winning position and has overseen the continual reduction of the number of seats at each election since 1997. I believe a better way to describe what happened - as opposed to the New Labour spin - is:

• the Tories lost the confidence of the electorate due to Black Wednesday;
• Labour won a landslide but failed to fulfil the aspirations of its voters, many of whom became disillusioned - either staying home or voting for third parties in subsequent elections;
• Labour lost economic credibility following the banking crisis in 2008 and thus lost in 2010;
• Tony Blair was in the right place at the right time. Napoleon Bonaparte said, "Give me lucky generals"; so, with politics: "Give me a lucky leader."