Accommodating or Shaping? Labour’s Electoral Dilemma

‘New’ Labour won the 1997 and 2001 General Elections by landslides, giving it Commons majorities of 179 and 167 seats respectively. This was a remarkable transformation: after losing its fourth election in a row in 1992, commentators speculated that Labour would remain in permanent Opposition (King, 1993, viii). Some analysts considered ‘New’ Labour regained power through following a ‘preference-accommodating’ strategy. By this they meant Blair had simply echoed the Thatcherite sensibilities of middle-class voters (those referred to as ‘Middle England’). To achieve this, he had ditched policies favoured by the party’s established manual working-class supporters (those designated ‘heartlands’ voters). Not everybody in the party saw merit in this alleged strategy. Some advocated a ‘preference-shaping’ approach, arguing that instead of pandering to Middle England’s views Blair should have challenged them so they eventually accorded with the party’s own beliefs. Labour would have won in 1997 on this basis and, such critics believe (given the dire state of the Conservatives), Prime Minister Blair could have been more radical in office and still gained re-election in 2001.