ABSTRACT
The 1997 general election was a triumph not only for Tony Blair but also for Margaret Thatcher. It was her final triumph in that it ensured that Thatcherism would survive a change of Government. Indeed, Labour was seen as safe to entrust with power only after it had fully accepted the broad outlines of Thatcherism: the priority of the attack on inflation, the importance of the market, the need for the trade unions to be regulated by law, and privatisation – Labour, in short, had to become New Labour if it was to win a general election. ‘The Conservatives’, Douglas Hurd has said, ‘lost the 1997 election, having won the fundamental arguments.’1 Indeed, the 1997 general election was the first since that of 1918 in which nationalisation, the balance between public and private ownership was not at issue.
