I remember this night very well. Was only 18 at the time, and I remember everyone in Edinburgh celebrating a stunning victory.

those words "virtual wipeout of the tory party in britain" literally send a happy shiver down my spine, especially when spoken by dimbleby.

@ryumuaz1997

Жыл бұрын

Same like malaysian 15th ge , when umno - bn defeat , 'virtual wipeout of the Barisan Nasional in Malaysia" , Feel like 2018 lah

@benmayhew2K

Ай бұрын

2024 will be complete wipeout

May be another election like this in two years

A nicely edited montage of memorable scenes accompanied by a superb soundtrack. Just a pity it was brought to a premature and abrupt halt! The entire Election 97 coverage was re-run on the BBC Parliament Channel recently. It was fascinating to dip into it and be reminded of the day the political landscape was shaken to its core. The Tory grandees expressed arrogant disbelief that they had lost, claiming their party had governed the country very successfully for eighteen years. Perhaps the public were sick and tired of them and had an appetite for change. I know I certainly did! Blair looked so young and energetic compared with jaded old grey Major.

Blair would do it again 4 years later, but as the election was a foregone conlusion in 2001, it was an anti climax with a low turnout. 2005 was similar, although the start of a Tory revival and growing support for the LDs saw Blair's majority halved.

“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!” .... ah, yes! I remember it all.

@alanberkeley7282

4 жыл бұрын

And it almost certainly will never happen again

@jzisers

3 жыл бұрын

Anyone in 2021 ?

Labour's General Election song in 1997 was "Things can only get better" by D-Ream.... The Tories should have been "Ready to go" by Republica!

Whatever you say now, that was an amazing night seeing the Tories swept out of power for the first time in my life at 17 years old. It will be a long time before we see this again.

@DFandV

9 жыл бұрын

True but Labour had a landslide I haven't seen Tories doing it. Maybe Thatcher was the closest.

@DFandV

9 жыл бұрын

In 1983 long may that not happen.

@DefrostedCalvinist

10 ай бұрын

You might see it real soon.

I felt bad for the conservative guy candidate nominee cuz he lost the election

@jzisers

3 жыл бұрын

Yea :(

where did you get these videos thier verry nice!

my first election I voted New Labour and was so let down within 18 months I had switched to the Green Party but I'm tempted by UKIP now in the same way of 1997.Will anyone get so many seats in future?

@natsurusenou131

7 жыл бұрын

Don't let UKIP tempt you

It was the hight of Cool Britannia. Young lads were being lad-ish. Young girls were being lad-ish. Tony Blair was a young lad. Keep the mood alive, vote in the young lad. This wasn't the kind of place where an old grey man ruled. Labor didn't win because of their policies. They won because Blair looked the part, in a time and culture where young and fresh ideals were the pulse of the nation.

@veggie42

8 жыл бұрын

oh yh I was one of the many first time voters wowed by Things Can Only Get Better.After divided Sleazy Tories who signed us into the EU without asking the people,Blair seemed a breath of fresh air.When he invited Oasis,Blur etc to No10 and John Prezza at the Brits having an ice bucket on his head by Chumbawumba,you couldn't believe it! it felt heady and a dreamworld.But when Blair resigned for Brown,I felt deflated and the split over the Iraq War and later the economy has turned them Tories

@alfredotacus8233

3 жыл бұрын

Nothing to with 18 years of Tory mismanagement then?

@97channel

3 жыл бұрын

As a broad generalization of young voter persuasion, I think the 1997 election result had a lot more to do with the marketing of Tony Blair than it did the actual politics being presented.

@elicrowleyycontreras1135

3 жыл бұрын

@@alfredotacus8233 Labour used the Tory Budgets for three years. If the Tories mismanaged everything, Brown would not have done that.

@Fireglo

Ай бұрын

Oh please John "Michael Caine" Major was way cooler than Blair.

Exactly.

I'm reasonably sure it was a regional news bulletin from 5.50-6.00.

Stirring stuff. It was time for a change back then and the whole country was euphoric. I'm not sure the result on Thursday (whatever it is) will be quite the same. Politicians all appear to be disconnected from the rest of us. Does anyone know what was the theme music to this clip?

god, just missed out on voting in this one but it was sweet.

Election 97 On Thursday1st/Friday 2nd May 1997 On BBC1.

The woman next to MartinBell is his daughter - she managed the campaign in Tatton

It is. All that hope and now 11 years down the line the country is falling apart around us,

Lol, your profile pic perhaps a clue my friend? :p

Hard to believe this was 16 years ago.

@scottishsocilast5310

6 жыл бұрын

GeorgiaKev hard to believe it was 20 years ago

@lucylocket4740

6 жыл бұрын

Hard to believe it was twenty one years ago!

@alanberkeley7282

4 жыл бұрын

@@lucylocket4740 23 years ago

@BiloLCFC

2 жыл бұрын

25 years ago!

It says that the Tories will in 4 seats while Labour will win 21. The fact that that is a particularly bad result for labour says a lot about the politics of Scotland.

What an exciting election! They don't make'm like that anymore.

1:16 It still is! WOO

@josephdyson3737

3 жыл бұрын

ToManyPhones and 10 years on, even after the 2019 disaster for Labour, it’s a Labour seat. If anything, it’s a relatively safe seat nowadays for them, with a larger majority last year than what they got in 1997. Funny how these things change, and those seats which formed the bedrock for Labour back then are now Tory held in a lot of cases.

Ah, the good old days...

Actually the marginal poll done by politicshome recently shows the Tories on course to win several Labour seats in Scotland. It still won't be huge but they aren't finished by any means. More likely Labour are due to the SNP.

I agree with the electoral bias comment, but it does fluctuate from time to time, look at 1951 when the Tories were 1% behind and won the election or October 1974 pretty similar to 2005 yet Labours majority was only 3

@papermariob We're all real people...

No. The LibDems were in coalition government in Scotland for 8 years and they were just as bad as Labour. If not worse.

Holy shit. Talk about a landslide. Your 1980 moment, perhaps.

Outside of some (unwanted) reforms to the Lords I don't think they have.

@uziTGC It was but it was an empty glory as the electorate has to be disenfranchised ever since.

This feels a bit sad for me. I don't know why.

@alfredotacus8233

3 жыл бұрын

Its because of of what might have been....so much opportunity for Blair, left mortally wounded in the sands of Iraq

The Tories were for in power for 18 years....had to end sometime

At the rate things are going now, expect a repeat performance in oh, say 2011 or 2012...

@eoin7

5 жыл бұрын

chrispythegull lmfaooooooo

Wisfull thinking by Dimbleby!!

@bismuthcadmium regretfully, I can't disagree.

A truly stunning VICTORY for Labour. One I shall NEVER forget. Simply A-m-a-z-I-n-g. Love seeing Labour Victory being projected on to the huge screen. Marvellous.

@iainguthrie4563

7 жыл бұрын

A truly sad day for Britain when that evil murdering rat Blair got in and caused this country a shitload of hell, illegal war, flooded us with mass immigration, ruined the economy. Thank god New Labour are history, it won't be missed.

@phatstrats6015

7 жыл бұрын

Okay then....... So essentially your 2 complains are the Iraq war (fair point) and immigration..... That's it really why not also look at all the good things he did for our country?

@GnewbzProductions

7 жыл бұрын

The worst day in history

@tomgibson6801

6 жыл бұрын

nope worst day in history was the 4th of may 1979

What a glorious night for Labour!

@lowestoftbus By Labour activists I imagine. They like to do that sort of thing.

The tories are finished in Scotland only 1 Scottish tory mp in the commons doesn't that tell you something?

P.S. Also loved seeing Tory boy Dimbbleby, TOTALLY GUTTED at Labour's massive landslide.

or by people with taste?

Labour wasted 13 years.

No, neither.

Enough people there want to vote for Labour still? Do they have no shame?

i can only hope the republicans get as roundly defeated as the tories did that evening come this november...

How was devolution a good thing?! Its the beginning of the end to Britain, Scotland is going to suffer big time if we vote for independence.

david dimbleby killing the mood there, he's a right Tory, bullingdom club and everything.

(2007)

@anothertrackmom

2 жыл бұрын

(2007)

Such an optimistic time compared to the shit show we are enduring at the moment.

May 2015. We'll see this again.

@tomgibson6801

6 жыл бұрын

:( sadly we didn't and lost a good man in the process but 17 was good and the next election we will come back fighting

@fruit-machinesuk306

4 жыл бұрын

@@tomgibson6801 Gotta say that again now with the new leader because Corbyn brought Labour into the wilderness. The new leader has a big task on his hands. He is up to the job.

@alanberkeley7282

4 жыл бұрын

HA HA HA

no its was a brill night lets hope for 2015

I still love it. As an American, the way our British cousins do politics is just on such a higher level. I remember watching this live in the US as a new Democrat who had worked twice for Bill Clinton and saw the obvious similarities between Blair and Clinton. Labour can return to government but they must return to moderate policies. The average voter here or there does not take to extremist candidates or policies. I do have a lot of hope for the future in many of Labour young leaders. Keep the faith I say to all my British Labour cousins. Better days ahead.

@billygoats4064

6 жыл бұрын

Do you harass fat greasy women? Stupid LIberal

@dylanharveybillson200

6 жыл бұрын

Not sure you're exactly right. We as a county are far, far more left then the USA (thankfully) and people like Blair are unlikely to win anytime soon at all. In fact even when he did win it was only with 30%+ of the vote. Did you watch the 2017 election since making this comment? Any updates now Jeremy Corbyn is headed for a win?

@MrPeterpiper1969

6 жыл бұрын

Dylan in 1997 he got 47% of the total vote. In 2001 it was 44 and in 05 it was ALSO 44. In all three cases labour was by far the largest party in terms of votes cast but what changed was where they got them. In 1997 there was a LOT of tactical voting going on. Liberal Democrats switched to Labour in order to get the Tories out in seats where their own candidate had no chance and Labour voters went Liberal Democrat in places where Labour were 3rd or lower in order to get rid of the Tories. In point of fact Labour's move to the centre was absolutely the right (no pun intended) thing to do and it resonated with the voters who'd until then mistrusted them, particularly in Middle England and the Home Counties. It had one unfortunate side effect (in my opinion). As I've said on other threads I'm a Conservative Party member but my party ran off to the far right after this election and it's still doing that now. Theresa May COULD have been a great Prime Minister, in fact I felt she'd be a better leader than Cameron especially after the EU referendum (which in my humble opinion was a disaster for Britain that will hurt our country for a long time) but ever since she took office she's been forced to keep the extremists in the party happy. The GE last year was intended to change that, in fact she felt it would give her and the moderates room to work but she didn't see that the UKIP vote in particular wouldn't ALL come back to us. That miscalculation led to our party being even more in thrall to its own extremists and the Unionists in Northern Ireland. The situation is actually more dangerous now than it was before the GE and that's bad for the country as a whole not just the tories. But I take nothing away from what Labour accomplished last year. In truth I was incredibly impressed by Jeremy Corbyn although I disagree with him on many policies and believe he's stuck in the 50's and 60's in some areas. However he's a man of clearly deeply held conviction and principle who carries himself with great personal dignity. Of all the current party leaders he impressed me the most and (although I hate to say this) I think that with the right cabinet, a cross party selection of people who can work together he'd make a very good, possibly even great Prime Minister. The one thing that does worry me is the "Momentum" movement which has far too many similarities to the American "Tea Party" that has literally hijacked the Republicans from within for my comfort. I don't doubt their sincerity, I do question their motives and what they really want the Labour Party to be. I know it will sound strange from me but I genuinely HOPE to be proven wrong, that they aren't out to try and force Labour back to the far left, clause 4, nationalise everything days of the late 70's and early 80's because that would put Labour right back in the wilderness and the country NEEDS a strong voice on the moderate left just as badly as it needs what my party USED to be, a strong voice on the moderate right. Sadly I fear the extremists are winning on both sides, something all reasonable people should work to stop.

Really, nationalisation isn't that great. Take the Railway. Before 1948 it worked great. Then Labour nationalised it and it's been in hell ever since. Even reprivatisation didn't save it. I miss the days of the LNER, LMS, GWR & SR. All thanks to bloody Clement "The NHS Wasn't Even My Idea" Atlee.

It's a shame they had to move so far to the right, I can only hope that Labour will return to it's left-wing socialist working class roots one day.

VOTE LIB DEM

2019. Sedgefield went to a Conservative Candidate. Boy did that felt great.

How times have changed, this makes me cringe. Looks like its Labour who's going to get (rightfully) erased from the political spectrum, goodbye and good riddance!

18 years of Tory failure, followed by 13 years of Labour incompetence and failure. Time for a real change - Vote Liberal Democrat

@tomgibson6801

6 жыл бұрын

this comment aged badly

@fruit-machinesuk306

4 жыл бұрын

@@tomgibson6801 😂

Blair wasnt that bad