1997 Election Case Study

Question 1

How many seats did labour win in the 1997 election?

Answer 1

Around 420 gained,
A change of just under +150 seats.

Question 2

How many seats did the conservatives win in the 1997 election?

Answer 2

165 won,
A Change of just under 180 seats lost from the previous one.

Question 3

What were the names of the three main leaders during the 1997 general election?

Answer 3

Tony Blair - labour
John major - conservative
Paddy Ashdown - Lib Dems

Question 4

What were the factors leading to labours success in 1997? (With reference to media and class)

Answer 4

-Tony Blair’s character and creation ‘new labour’ a more centrist transformation of the Labour Party.
-This appealed to class C1 & C2 (middle class voters) as well as the working class which stole a lot of conservative votes.
-Blair also flew to Australia to go to a news corporation conference with Rupert Murdoch of the sun newspaper which then backed Labour in the election.

Question 5

What led to the conservatives being ‘buried’ in the 1997 election?

Answer 5

-Events like ‘black Wednesday’ when the pound was withdrawn from the European exchange rate mechanism which ‘collapsed the pound sterling’.
-There were also lots of ‘sleaze’ allegations.
-The economic voters with the 90s recession in mind.

Question 6

What did the opinion polls suggest about the 1997 election and how did it affect their votes?

Answer 6

-The opinion polls were more accurate than ones in 1992 suggesting that around the election, Labour was estimated to have a third more votes than conservative.
-However, labour still acted as if they might lose because the 1992 poles were misleading.

Question 7

What consisted of the the conservative election campaign in 1997?

Answer 7

• stating that labours ‘new labour’ was just a facade for ‘old labour’
  -labour was ‘stealing Tory clothes’ describing how new labour adopted policies very similar to traditional conservative ones.
• ‘new labour, new danger’ posters weren’t a great idea as the conservatives were also saying that labour copied their policies.

Question 8

How did clauses and media affect the 1997 election for Labour and what was their overall campaign?

Answer 8

-run from the Millbank media centre using ‘soundbites’ of when Blair said his three priorities were: ‘education, education, education’ which was a key valence issue of the time.
-they also said the would scrap clause IV which was to do with strict nationalisation of industry.
-as the Labour Party had a previous reputation as a ‘tax and spend’ party, it decided to stress its priorities were the NHS and education.