When Tony Blair declared that he wanted Britain to be “a young country again” during his 1995 Labour Party conference speech, he had no idea that his words would eventually be cut, stitched and repurposed for a TikTok — complete with lo-fi Arial subtitles and Be My Baby by The Ronettes as the backing music — nearly 30 years later. If he had known, he probably would have been thrilled. Especially considering that the video clip, courtesy of an account called “The Blair Era”, is currently sitting pretty at 218,000 views.
This might come as a shock to anyone who had a fully developed frontal lobe in 1997, but my generation is absolutely obsessed with New Labour. In fact, going through a New Labour obsession is almost a rite of passage for us Gen Zs. Believe me — I did it. I watched the documentaries, I scoured the Wikipedia pages, I read Alastair Campbell’s diaries cover to cover. You know, typical young person stuff.
