in this video what I want to do is spend some time talking about the 1997 UK general election as part of a sort of minseries in this particular topic on elections and voting uh examining a few case studies looking at 1979 looking at 1997 2010 2017 and 2019 so this lesson specifically will focus on the context and the background associated with the 1997 election we will talk about the campaign that was run by both the labor party and the conservative party and we will think about the voting behavior the demographics and the results around the 1997 election before finally thinking about its impact and its significance so the 1997 general election marked uh the UK was marked in the UK as a significant moment when thinking about the labor party because they achieved a landslide Victory after 18 years of conservative rule this was done under the leadership of Tony Blair and the shift away from a much more further left political um party to a for more a more left of center um political party uh under new labor now in terms of the background and context you have to remember that by the mid 1990s the conservative party was led by John Major and had been facing a significant number number of challenges the first of this was in the uh use of or at least the the the the phenomenon of of economic recession and the impact of the 1992 black Wednesday crisis the black Wednesday crisis for those of you who don't know essentially was when the United Kingdom was forced to withdraw from the European exchange rate mechanism and this was something that had damaged quite significantly the reputation of the conservatives the conservatives have historic ly been seen as a political party with a reputation for economic competence when black Wednesday happened and the UK had to withdraw from the eer um this then led to a situation in which uh the conservatives uh Stellar reputation on the economy was shattered in addition to this a number of scandals and infighting within the conservative party especially when it came to issues uh surrounding corruption and Alle ations of corruption issues that were collectively known as SAS um led to further eroding of trust in the government of uh the time in contrast to the failures and the decline of the conservative party we also see the rise of a new labor party under a new leader this was Tony Blair who had modernized his image and distance himself from the more traditional leftwing policies of his previous uh counterparts people like for example Michael foot Labor's leadership and the party's adoption of a more left of center platform marked the phase known as New labor and this was an attempt to appeal to a broader electorate including a number of traditional conservative supporters who maybe were less on the right than some of the uh politics of the conservative party of old but were not left-wing enough to uh be able to see themselves supporting someone like for example foot this sort of cist and sort of center-left political party was seen as a more a more friendly place for the traditional conservative supporters who were like I said disillusioned with the state of the country at the time we also have to think about the impact of a number of other uh elements so for example the liberal Democrats were ran by Paddy Ashdown who is who is cited here who's who's imaged here on on screen um the liberal Democrats were also a significant force in this election they were able to position themselves as an alternative to both the conservatives and the labor party although when it came to the final outcome they would have quite little in terms of an impact so in terms of election issues the economy was one of the most important of them and as it is the case in pretty much every single election the conservatives economic management was under attack the country had experienced significant economic instability throughout the 1990s there was recession in the early 1990s there was the Fallout from black Wednesday and labor were able to capitalize on these issues and they tried to emphasize that there would be economic competence under the leadership of Tony Blair in addition to this there would be in the labor Manifesto A promised substantial amount of constitutional reform so there would be Devolution legislation that would be introduced in uh Scotland and Wales which would give them power to legislate on their own uh on their own issues uh beyond the scope of Westminster there would be promises to reform the House of Lords there would be promises to incorporate the European convention on human rights into domestic legislation with the Human Rights Act and there would be constitutional reform when it came to the establishment of a supreme court in terms terms of the other issues uh education and health was also a major factor Blair focused on improving public services such as the National Health Service as well as uh the education system and the conservatives had been perceived by contrast as weakening the power and the authority of the NHS while labor promised to prioritize the funding and reform of the National Health Service and so you can understand that when we get to the actual results uh we can see that the labor party um definitely were able to revitalize the traditional workingclass base who were also attracting new supporters as well including middle-class voters who had previously supported the conservatives now we can see as well that there was a decline in the conservative party they lost support across many of the traditional conservative areas especially when we think about urban areas in the north of England where labor had actually made the most significant gains in addition to this the conservatives were particularly weak when we think about their performance in regions so for example in Scotland and Wales where Labor's appeal was actually the strongest now in terms of the liberal Democrats they also had made some gains particularly in Southern England and some of the rural constituencies again while not having much significant effect over the overall outcome this would take away from a number of the conservative um strongholds and conservative traditional voters finally then before we look at the election results themselves the media would play a role in shaping the perceptions of the election there was a significant shift in the way in which the labor party was covered and by the media the Tabloid press for example had began to soften its stance on Tony Blair's leadership they had been previously relatively hostile to labor but they gained pop it gained popularity the labor party under the leadership of Tony Blair most notably the the Sun newspaper being a particularly Pro Blair during this time all of this would result in the following um the the the following statistics Labour would win 418 seats the conservative party would only get 165 the majority therefore was 179 seats which is the largest majority in parliamentary history Labour's Victory therefore was a landslide Tony Blair became the youngest prime minister in British history in fact at the age of 43 they won many constituencies that had been traditionally conservative and the conservatives Lo suffered their worst defeat since 1832 losing 178 seats now in terms of the voter turnout we can see that the overall turnout was still relatively High 71.3% of the electorate turning out to vote is a major um achievement especially compared to more recent elections this was a decrease from the previous election of 1992 which was a 77.7% turnout but while it was lower than previous elections it was still a significantly high level of turnout compared to the elections that we see in the future so what can we conclude and analyze about the 1997 general election well we obviously have to think about the regional voting patterns in Scotland for example Labor's dominance was in fact particularly absolute the the S SMP was not particularly um strong uh uh during this period they only won seven uh six seats should I say um whereas the labor party took 56% of the seats uh labor share of the vote in Scotland was overwhelming when it comes to Wales labor also performed strongly they won 39 out of 40 of the seats in the uh in the country of Wales where the liberal Democrats made some inroads uh Labour's position was still nevertheless dominant when it came to the traditional conservative heartlands in England labor managed to make considerable inroads there as well particularly when thinking about Urban environments uh Labour won many constituencies in the in the industrial North that had traditionally been um uh strong for the Tories at least in the last 18 years and especially also areas like London and the Midlands the only area in which the conservatives remained strong were in Parts some parts of Southern England but they still nevertheless lost seats to the labor party there as well as a sort of General conclusion then the 1997 election marked a end to the 18 years of conservative rule which began in 1979 under Margaret Thatcher the labor party returned to power for the the first time since 1979 with the outing of of James Callahan and Labour's uh Victory reshaped the British political landscape this was the period of new labor that would last from 1997 all the way to 2010 Tony Blair's leadership represented the modernized and more Centrist approach to the labor party abandoning some of the more traditional leftwing policies that were heavily focused on the ideas such as things like nationalization and instead focused on more Market friendly policies that still had something of a progressive and to the C left of center um approach they um also would continue to think about social justice and the reform of public services and all of these things therefore made that uh the Tony Blair had a certain appeal to the middle class which helped labor to gain significant electoral wins across areas in which voters would traditionally not have um uh voted for the labor party in terms of what would then come in the early uh in the late 1990s should I say and the sort of early years of new labor we see that Devolution takes place with uh Scotland Wales uh Scotland and Wales um uh legislation in 1998 um and you also have the Human Rights Act also passing in 1998 as well as the Good Friday agreement um as well towards the end of the Millennia the the impact that this had on the conservative party marked a significant shift the conservative party was left in a state of disarray they had to struggle with a number of internal divisions as well as new issues such as the role of Europe and the role of the party in a post Thatcher era now only did the the the conservative party only managed to be able to reposition itself uh after a number of Elections would take place and it wasn't until 2010 that the conservative party would return to power under the leadership of David Cameron and so this political shift was seen as a major turning point signaling again the end of the consensus in 19 uh from 1979 which was sort of known as the postwar consensus and it marked a shift of uh political Domination by new labor and a more Market driven political economy and so generally if we were to sort of uh conclude and to sort of uh summarize this particular election it was a decisive moment in political history as all of these elections were and it was a landslide victory for Tony Blair marking the end of conservative Rule and marking the beginning of a new labor realm this period uh of time was of course a period which was marked by a number of controversies especially when we think about foreign policy and under Tony Blair um but again that's beyond the scope of this series of lessons uh the next lesson we'll think about the period that follow follows the new labor governments and we'll talk about the 2010 general election which resulted in the establishment of a new coalition