Labour supporters believe Andy Burnham is as good or a better prime minister than either Sir Tony Blair or Gordon Brown, a new survey has revealed.
It comes in a week where Mr Burnham prepares for his first conference as leader of the Labour party, days after Sir Tony advised him to rejoin the EU and end Brexit in the next decade.
The polling carried out by Opinium has shown that among 56 per cent of Labour supporters think the current government is doing about as well (26 per cent) or better (30 per cent) at running the country than New Labour did.
Meanwhile, 31 per cent say it is doing worse.
This is despite Sir Tony inheriting a strong economic situation in 1997 when he came to power as opposed to the difficult circumstances faced by Mr Burnham with a tricky Budget coming up in October.
While Mr Brown led the world in tackling the banking collapse, Mr Burnham and his chancellor John Healey have to find money from a flatlining economy to meet commitments on 3 per cent of GDP on defence, as well as funding his priorities on devolution.
The survey also found that, among the supporters who remember New Labour in the late 1990s and early 2000s, six in 10 believe it was good for Britain, compared with one in 10 who feel it was bad, despite the anger felt over the Iraq war.
The fondness for New Labour is not shared by the public as a whole, who are divided on its record, with a third of those who remember it saying it was good, a third saying bad and another third saying neither or don’t know.
With mass immigration becoming an issue during Sir Tony’s premiership, Reform supporters are most hostile, with 54 per cent saying New Labour was bad and only 19 per cent that it was good. Conservative supporters are also negative, with 47 per cent saying bad and 22 per cent good.
However, only half of the public, 51 per cent, say they remember the New Labour governments of 1997-2010 “very well” or “fairly well” – 34 per cent say they “don’t really remember them” or “don’t remember them at all”, and 9 per cent say they are too young to remember them.
People are most likely to say New Labour was good for Britain’s standing in the world (33 per cent), the NHS (32 per cent) and education (32 per cent), and most likely to say it was bad for trust in politics (38 per cent) and the economy (34 per cent).
The survey, carried out by Opinium for the Policy Institute and the Strand Group at King’s College London ahead of Labour Party conference, interviewed 3,750 UK adults between 7 and 13 August.
Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute, said: “The New Labour years started with all the optimism of a landslide victory, and ended with a sense of eroded trust and belief, driven by the Iraq war and the grinding aftermath of the financial crisis. The public’s memory of the period mirrors these very different perspectives – perfectly split on whether it was good or bad for Britain.”
He added: “But the more telling story for the current Labour government is that its own supporters aren't simply lost in the rosy retrospection of nostalgia: most think the current government is matching or beating New Labour’s record, which is reflected in the current positive rating of Andy Burnham.
“Of course, it’s very early days for the Burnham government, and maintaining that positivity is a challenge that Tony Blair was uniquely successful at in modern times: he still had a net positive rating three years into his first term, something no leader since has got anywhere near.”
Professor Jon Davis, Director of the Strand Group, said: “One of the most striking findings from this research is on the NHS. The public today are almost evenly split on whether New Labour was good or bad for it, yet that’s not how people judged it at the time: British Social Attitudes data shows satisfaction with the NHS rising steadily through the 2000s to a peak of around 70 per cent by 2010, the highest level ever recorded.
“It’s a powerful reminder of how far our memory of a government’s record can drift from how we rated it at the time.”
