Before politicians had YouTube and TikTok clips…
… some of them made campaign videos on good old VHS tapes and sent them to voters, as this example from then Lib Dem MP Brian Cotter shows. … Read the full post »
1997 General Election
Read about the 1997 general election in which Tony Blair led the Labour Party to a landslide election victory, replacing John Major as Prime Minister.
North Shropshire Conservative candidate adopts Norman Lamont’s losing election tactic
In 1997, boundary changes had forced the unpopular former Conservative Chancellor, Norman Lamont, to seek election elsewhere. … Read the full post »
The Project: how the Conservatives were beaten last time – with Duncan Brack
In the latest episode of Never Mind The Bar Charts, I talk with Duncan Brack, the closest thing the party has to an official historian, about the lessons for the Liberal Democrats from the last time that a Conservative government was defeated. … Read the full post »
Five of the best political adverts: Britain deserves better
Music played a major role in one of the UK Labour Party’s 1997 general election broadcasts, which is the most powerful of all the ones I’ve seen ‘live’ at the time of broadcast. … Read the full post »
The most powerful party political broadcast I’ve seen broadcast live
Although it isn’t a Liberal Democrat (or Alliance, SDP or Liberal) party election broadcast, this is the one that had the biggest immediate impact on me … Read the full post »
Tories are hoping economic recovery will win it for them in 2015; why didn’t it in 1997?
In some ways 2015 is nothing like 1997. Exhibits A and B: Tony Blair and Ed Miliband. But in one important sense they are very similar. … Read the full post »
Will it be ‘the economy, stupid’ in 2015?
Quite how traumatic the events of Black Wednesday were to the Conservative Party’s reputation are easy to overlook nearly twenty-five years on, but until then the century had seen four full-scale financial crises rocking the country’s economy – and every one had taken place under a Labour government. … Read the full post »
Word of mouth election? That’s so 1997
Douglas Alexander’s soundbite about wanting to make 2010 the “word of mouth” election has got a fair amount of coverage in the last few days. … Read the full post »
Why wasn’t it “the economy, stupid” in 1997?
Once bad economic news has broken your reputation, economic recovery is not sufficient to put it back together again – as the Conservatives found out in 1997. … Read the full post »
Party political broadcasts: The greatest hits
The BBC had been pressing for political broadcasts to be used during the 1950 election, but initially met hostility from politicians. The very first political broadcast, either PEB or PPB, was eventually seen on 15 October 1951. … Read the full post »