The media is generally not great at history but most have noticed that Keir Starmer’s launch of a six point pledge card is rather similar to Blair’s 1997 pledges, although he had five.
A useful, if certainly unreliable, source for the process which led to the New Labour pledge card are Alastair Campbell’s Diaries.
He recorded on June 18th 1996 that Gordon Brown felt the pledges were too small and ‘lacked ambition’.Campbell notes that the ‘public are tired of grand promises and want to be able to believe the promises that are made’. He goes on ‘trade union reform was obviously a bit sensitive’, and suggested it wasnt clear where John Prescott and Robin Cook stood on the matter.
Rights at work did not appear on the 1997 pledge card (1999 Employment Relations Act) anymore than the New Deal appears on Starmer’s 2024 pledge card
Leave a Reply