[Epona]

I disagree Wellard. Although it may look that way, there was a lot of water passed under the bridge between 1979 and er... 1997. People's eyes had been opened to the full meaning of 'Thatcherism', and turned back to Labour because after that many years of tory rule, the population were much more left wing than they had been in previous years, and did want something more left wing. The Labour party misjudged that completely, since they seem to have spent a lot of time contemplating their image after previous election defeats, rather than finding out what the population actually wanted. A monkey could have been leader of the Labour Party at the time, and there would still have been a landslide victory. The population had spent the latter part of the 90s moving further leftwards, while Labour inched rightwards completely oblivious of the mood within the country as a whole.

A lot of people really genuinely believed that Labour and Blair were trying to make themselves appear more electable and media-friendly, but that once in power would implement social policies. Which of course didn't happen.

[ 05-11-2003, 12:56 PM: Message edited by: Epona ]