Labour’s 100 Days: 1997-2024
The Labour Government elected on July 4th reaches 100 days in Office this week
Below is what the 1997 Labour Manifesto said about the first 100 days of a Labour Government.
Changing things bit by bit via reform takes time and can be frustratingly slow as Blair found out. He decided foreign interventions had a more immediate, albeit, disastrous impact.
On Day 97 in 2024, Thursday 10th October, Labour’s plans for new employment rights were unveiled. As with the Employment Relations Act after 1997, not all Manifesto commitments have made it into the actual Bill. Pressure from business counted more than that from Unions in 1997 and no doubt a similar process has been underway again
Labour did actually do things in the period after 1997 that the Tories did not like such as the introduction of the National Minimum Wage and an Employment Relations Act that made modest progress in rebalancing workplace relations towards workers and unions.
The problem with a 100 days focus is that actual change takes much longer. The Employment Relations Act reached the Statute Book in July 1999 and it is reported that the new employment rights wont come into force until the autumn of 2026
What New Labour said about 100 days in 1997
That is why we have made it our guiding rule not to promise what we cannot deliver; and to deliver what we promise. What follows is not the politics of a 100 days that dazzles for a time, then fizzles out. It is not the politics of a revolution, but of a fresh start, the patient rebuilding and renewing of this country – renewal that can take root and build over time.
Labour Party Manifesto 1997
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