Fool Britannia: Brits hoping for a return to the Blair-era glory days are dreaming

The most repeated phrase being used by the British commentariat ahead of this week’s general election is “1997-style landslide” – a nod to the last time the UK Labour Party won government after an extended period in opposition.

While some polls project a complete Tory wipeout, others are somewhat more conservative. All, however, accept that come the end of this week, Sir Keir Starmer will be the next prime minister, and that Labour will win by a substantial margin.

Tony Blair on Downing Street following the 1997 election.Credit: AP

It isn’t just a return of Labour after 14 years in opposition that’s causing Brits to draw rose-tinted comparisons to 1997, when Tony Blair triumphed after 18 years of Conservative Party rule – it’s a nostalgic longing for things to be like they were back then.

I remember late ’90s Britain so well. The pun “Cool Britannia” caught on because it became acceptable for progressives – not just jingoistic conservatives – to be patriotic again.

Even before Blair sailed in to power behind D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better, a seismic pop-cultural shift was occurring in the UK. In 1996, the Spice Girls released their first single, Wannabe. With it, they exported accessible feminism known as Girl Power to the world. (During a 1998 visit to Australia, Geri Halliwell said then Australian prime minister John Howard – who refused to meet the band – “should have more females in his cabinet”.) At the same time, one of the biggest models in the world, Naomi Campbell, was a black woman who had grown up in a poor area of South London.

There was a palpable optimism and progressive social change in the air. Compared with staid and greying Tories, electing a leader who’d played in a university band and styled himself on Mick Jagger felt like a natural progression of the cultural expansion.

I was 15 and living in Britain when Blair was first elected, and 28 when Labour, then led by Gordon Brown, left office. As I grew up during those 13 years, it felt like my country did, too.

I remember so clearly New Labour’s contagious energy and optimism. I remember Blair succinctly articulating a clear political vision for the country. But mostly, I remember what he, as a leader, meant to me personally.

Throughout university, I had a picture of him, looking handsome and assured, Blu-Tacked to my wall. (I took it down when he backed the Iraq invasion.) Some friends laughed when they saw it; others took offence. But they would soften when I explained why it was there.

Blair transformed Britain for gay men like me. By the time New Labour left office, Section 28 (a clause introduced by Margaret Thatcher that outlawed the “promotion” of homosexuality in schools) had been repealed. The age of consent between gay and straight people had been equalised. Same-sex civil partnerships had been legalised, and bans on gay people serving in the military had been lifted.

Where Tony Blair arrived at a point of hope, Keir Starmer enters at a point of despair.Credit: AP

Blair championed those from less-privileged backgrounds, too. The Sure Start program, set up in low socioeconomic areas, brought centralised access to health, early education, and family support services under one roof for children aged under five and parents is widely considered a major success of the time.

Maybe I wear rose-tinted glasses, too, though. Critics rightly point out that, in opposition, Blair abstained from voting on lifting the ban on gay people serving in the military, and it took his government all three of its terms in office to achieve the landmark measures towards equality.

But Blair was operating in very different times to those we live in today. A sizeable cohort of the public and the media was openly hostile towards gay equality measures. The tone change from Thatcher – who notoriously said children who “need to be taught to respect traditional moral values” are “being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay” just a decade prior to Blair’s ascension – was stark.

Sadly, today’s Britain is a world away from 1997. Any excitement and pride have long been replaced with deep cynicism and Brexit division. Immigration, a crumbling healthcare system, job insecurity and growing inequality are front-of-mind for British voters, who have a growing distrust in politicians and their ability to do the job.

Whatever your views on their politics, Thatcher, John Major, Blair and Brown were strong leaders. Yet, they were replaced with utter charlatans in Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and to some extent, Rishi Sunak, who’ve made the country an international joke. Where Blair arrived at a point of hope, Starmer enters at a point of despair. Such comparisons of radical social transformation, even if Labour does win by a landslide, are frustratingly utopian.

Labour’s 2024 election manifesto has been called “quiet radicalism”. It echoes Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s “don’t scare the horses” small-target strategy to get Australian Labor back in power for the first term, saving ambitious and riskier policy plans for later.

The rot in Britain is now so deep that the political options for repair will have to extend well beyond Starmer’s first term, assuming there is one. If he doesn’t squander his projected landslide, however, and can become more visionary and bolder, there’s still space on my wall for a new picture.

Gary Nunn is a freelance writer and author based in Sydney.

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