Ten of the 14 leaders of the opposition in the last half century never made it to become prime minister—and the jury is out on the 15th, who is having a hard time. So a manual needs to be written on how to do the job successfully.
It’s basically the same as how to succeed in most things in life, which is to try a bit of “R&D”—“rob and duplicate.” The R&D model in this case is Tony Blair. Disagreements about his record in office can get heated, but that is an argument for another day. Looked at solely as opposition leader, there is no room for serious doubt: he was the most successful since the post became a recognisable part of Britain’s two-party system.
In less than three years as leader of the opposition (July 1994 to May 1997) Blair secured the biggest electoral victory in the peacetime history of democratic Britain, increasing his party’s number of MPs by more than 50 per cent, on the back of a 25 per cent higher vote share than in the previous election. True, Attlee won an even more dramatic landslide against Churchill at the end of the Second World War, but in 1945 the voters were exceptionally choosing between two leaders of an outgoing wartime coalition, rather than between a party in power and one which had spent years campaigning single-mindedly to replace it.
Blair went on to win two further elections and hold office for longer than any other modern party leader except Margaret Thatcher—whose 11 years in No 10 began with a less impressive victory from opposition, despite following Jim Callaghan’s “winter of discontent” in 1978-79. By contrast, in 1997 Blair upended John Major’s administration which was, by then, presiding over a strengthening economic recovery.
While Blair was politically ascendant, and for a good while afterwards, it was fashionable to say that “anyone” could have won the 1997 election for Labour after four successive defeats at the hands of Thatcher and Major. But four Labour election defeats beyond Blair’s departure in 2007, this is surely now recognised as wishful thinking. Labour could easily have lost in 1997, as it did for the fourth successive time in 2019 under Jeremy Corbyn. Even the adroit Harold Wilson only won by a hair’s breadth in 1964, against a weak and languid Tory leader (Sir Alec Douglas-Home), in the fourth election since Attlee lost in 1951.
So what was Blair’s winning formula? It had three ingredients, I suggest.
First, passionate yet forensic intensity in humiliating the government. As a connoisseur of Middle England, Blair knew that in the context of the mid-1990s any radical pre-election departures of policy would hand the initiative back to Major, particularly on taxation and spending, given Labour’s past reputation for economic recklessness. Instead he developed a morally powerful and politically suggestive attack on Tory “sleaze,” selfishness, neglect of the public realm and isolation from Europe, while proffering micro-changes to boost the NHS, education and law and order.
This was a viable strategy for 1997, maybe the only viable one, because it squared a buoyant economy and a moderate Tory government with a country anxious for new and stronger leadership but still worried about extremism in the Labour party. In the context of Brexit and today’s economic dislocation, the Blair compound would doubtless be different, but with common elements of competence, sound policy and passionate personal conviction. What Blair grasped, with brilliance, was that sitting on the fence doesn’t work as leader of the opposition. The iron enters your soul and people just see the fence. And they don’t vote for fences.
The second Blair ingredient was a project of party reform which mirrored both the concerns the public had about the Labour party and their yearning for new and better national leadership. Hence the high-stakes campaign to change the socialist Clause 4 of Labour’s constitution, replacing an outdated commitment to mass nationalisation with warm, almost Biblical, communitarian language about “the strength of our common endeavour,” building “a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few,” and “where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.” It was soon “New Labour, New Britain,” which under Blair sounded credible, not ludicrous.
Oh and the third ingredient? Blair himself: his image, his character, his dynamism, his vitality, his leadership. They are hard to replicate. But maybe they don’t need replication: he is still only 67, 10 years younger than Biden and mid-age between Churchill and Attlee in 1945. Just a thought.
