Mile End Institute Conference: Legacy and Lessons - 25 years – is it too soon to tell?

Programme

12.30 Introduction

 

12.45 Session I: The Road to 1997: Modernisation and Change in the Labour Party; the '97 Campaign

Chair: Professor Steven Fielding, Professor of Political History, University of Nottingham

Presentation: The 1997 result: key facts; where Labour gained most ground; its voter coalition etc (Professor Tim Bale, Queen Mary, University of London)

Discussants:

• Dame Margaret Hodge MP, former ministers and chair of Public Accounts Committee (changing Labour in London; the role/importance of local government)
• Rt Hon Caroline Flint, Former Labour Cabinet Minister (the modernisation of the party since the Kinnock era),
• Professor Sarah Childs, Royal Holloway, University of London (the impact of all women shortlists; the implications of the 1997 result for women's representation)
• John McTernan, Journalist, Former Political Secretary to Tony Blair

 

1.45pm: The View from Millbank Tower

Chair: Dr Colm Murphy, Deputy Director, Mile End Institute

Discussant: Peter Mandelson, Former Cabinet Minister, European Commissioner

 

2.15pm Session II:

Keynote speaker: Rt Hon David Miliband, President and CEO, International Rescue Committee

 

3.15pm: Break

 

3.30pm Session III: Was there a Blair Revolution in British Politics?

Chair: Dr Robert Saunders, Reader in History, Queen Mary, University of London

Discussants:

• Will Hutton, Columnist & President-designate of the Academy of Social Sciences (the economy)
• Polly Toynbee, Guardian Columnist (social policy)
• Sunder Katwala, Director, British Future (identity and immigration)
• Rt Hon Charles Clarke, Former Labour Home Secretary (education/public services/the constitution)
• Rushanara Ali, MP (politics)
• Professor Tim Bale, Queen Mary, University of London (the view of New Labour among Conservatives)

 

5-6pm: Where Next for Labour?

Chair: Dr Lyndsey Jenkins, Deputy Director of Mile End Institute & Leverhulme Early Career Fellow

Discussants:

• Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow
• Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing Central and Acton
• Dr Lise Butler, Senior Lecturer in Modern British History, City University, London
• Harry Quilter-Pinner, Director of Research and Engagement, IPPR
• Ailbhe Rea, Political Correspondent, New Statesman

 

Themes/topics: how can Labour win the next election? Where does the party go from here?

6pm: Reception

Delegate fee

Delegate fee £20+VAT

Purpose of the Conference and Programme

This public conference will discuss the lessons and legacy of the Labour Party’s election victory in 1997 and its long term impact on election campaigning methods, government and social values.

The 1997 election is widely discussed and analysed for a variety of reasons. It brought an end to a long period of Conservative governance that dominated the previous eighteen years.

Labour won by a landslide, achieving the largest parliamentary majority in its history and was the first of 3 further election victories.

1997 also affirmed a fundamental shift underway in Britain’s economy and society following the end of the Cold War, while the long-term process of deindustrialization and alterations in national and social identities were reshaping UK politics.

After the structural crises of the 1970s and the perceived divisions of the Thatcher era, the 1990s appeared to some commentators to inaugurate a more benign and consensual period in British politics underlined by the shift to the centre-ground under John Major

Tony Blair himself claimed that the old ideological divide between Left and Right was becoming obsolete, epitomised by the mantra of the ‘third way’.

The 1997 election also stands out because of the innovative campaign techniques that New Labour employed: a focus on the centralised campaign message; the ‘spin’ machine and Millbank ‘war room’; alongside the systematic use of advertising and focus group research.

New technologies of political campaigning were unleashed with great force, drawing on the experience of Bill Clinton’s New Democrats in the United States.

Yet there is major disagreement within the Labour party and the British Left about the meaning and significance of the 1997 victory.

Did ‘New’ Labour win because the party had jettisoned its traditional ideology and beliefs in the face of the Thatcher and neoliberal insurgency; or did Blair’s party merely represent a renewed and updated version of long established social democratic values in Britain, in tune with the post-war legacy of Attlee and Wilson?

Was the historic 1997 landslide a lost opportunity for the Labour Party to reshape twenty-first century Britain in its image, or are we as much ‘Blair’s children’ as ‘Thatcher’s children’ today?

This conference will be an opportunity to reflect on what the 1997 Labour election triumph meant for the institutions and economy of the UK, the Labour party and the long-term future of British politics.

The conference will include discussion of lessons for today’s politicians.

Who should attend

Researchers in UK politics, government, social change, economics, identity

• Academics
• Commentators
• Think tanks
• Public affairs analysts
• Trade associations
• Charities
• Professional associations
• Agencies
• Political consultancies
• Political party managers
• Local councils
• Devolved and local government
• Civil servants
• Non departmental public bodies