I was in the midst of the exuberant throng at the Royal Festival Hall on that warm night in May 1997. I enjoyed the never to be repeated spectacle of Neil Kinnock, Peter Mandelson and John Prescott jigging their limbs to D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better. I was deafened by the raucous celebrations as Tory MP after Tory MP was engulfed by the Labour landslide. Wild cheers greeted the defeat of Neil Hamilton, oily epitome of the Tory sleaze of that time. “Out! Out! Out!” the celebrants roared when Michael Portillo, quiffed embodiment of Tory arrogance, became one of seven cabinet ministers to lose his seat. And I watched as the sun peeped over the Thames and Tony Blair, with characteristically impeccable timing, declared to the ecstatic crowd: “A new dawn has broken, has it not?”
Labour had achieved a landslide majority of 179, so whopping that it bested even Clement Attlee’s landmark victory in 1945. The curtain crashed down on 18 long years of Tory rule to usher in an unprecedented 13 years of Labour government.
