ABSTRACT
The architects of what would come to be called New Labour –basically the most committed of the party's 'modernisers' – may have chafed during John Smith's tenure as leader, but it was very hard to argue with his success. Under John Smith's leadership the Labour Party went from puzzled agony over the loss of 1992 to a confident expectation of victory whenever John Major might choose to call the next election. The pivot was Black Wednesday in September 1992: after that date Labour never lost its lead in the opinion polls. Even during the controversy surrounding the block vote popular support remained firm, and in January 1994 five separate polls gave Labour an average lead of 20 points over the Conservatives. Over the next six months Labour's lead would be translated into massive victories in local elections that typically saw the Tories pushed into third place behind the Liberal Democrats, and it was dramatically confirmed in the elections to the European Parliament on 9 June 1994, when Labour won more than three times as many seats as the Tories and Liberal Democrats combined. 1 By then, of course, John Smith had died and Blair's leadership campaign was well under way, but the polls remained undisturbed.
