Allow me a little nostagia. 10 years ago today, I was zipping under Chiswick flyover, knocking on doors for victory. Our candidate was Ann Keen. The young fresh-faced campaign manager for Brentford and Isleworth Labour Party was legendary organiser Iain McNicol. Iain had sent me out to knock doors with a London based trade union official who went by the name of Kenny.
The election victory actually came 10 years ago tomorrow. 10 years ago this day, thousands of people worked tirelessly to turn out supporters for Labour. No-one could allow themselves the excitement of thinking that we were going to win, in case a 1992 hit us again. It seems like yesterday.
What is your memory of the day?
23 comments ↓
Memories. Having to empty out temporary Labour Party Offices in the East Midlands (on the orders of R.K)of computer equipment before the land lords locked us out at midnight! Also getting wheel clamped(in Cleethorpes of all places).
Great day though!
I was asleep. I was only 9 at the time though! Now, I’m 19 at Uni…How time moves quickly! I remember waking up, and watching the breakfast news programmme. I was still young, but realised even then that something big had happend. The old tories that I always remebered had been knocked for six and Tony Blair had won an immense election victory.
Can I, by the way just remind everyone of the scale of this election- 179 majority- larger than Labour in 1945, Thatcher in 1983, and in terms of seats, Labour won more than the liberals in 1906- 418 in 1997 compared to 399. Huge. Fantasic.
Glad confident morning. Sunshine. Joy.Looking back, feel like crying.
Helping out in Stourbridge for Debra Shipley. Memories mostly of the night, and what a night. Portillo, Lamont, and above all, the master of smug, David Mellor all effectively consigned to the dustbin of history.
I’ve posted about it on my blog.
Susan – for some of us the sunshine and the joy have lasted ten years. Cheer up.
Wish I could, Luke. Brown does not inspire me with joy.His piece in today’s Sun is beyond satire.I understand the nice memories people have. But we are sleepwalking to disaster.
I was a fresh faced A level student campaigning for Matt Carter in Thirsk, within the Vale of York consituency. There aren’t enormous numbers of Labour voters in that part of North Yorkshire, though it felt that we were all contributing to the cause. Wordsworth was right:
Bliss it was to be alive,
but to be young was very heaven.
Memories……I see you’ve made no mention of your little visit to Tory HQ in the small hours to return the comlpiment they bestowed in 1992……old age and memory eh lad….just as well I know where the bodies are…
I was still a ‘normal’ person then – not yet sucked into the joys of activism – so I went to work. I was pretty convinced that my hopes would be dashed and that we’d be in for another five years of the Tories and that the smug buffoon who wore a bow tie to work would be gloating as he had been in 1992.
Stayed up most of the night to watch the fun, joined the party a couple of weeks later (had tried in about 1973 but my application got “lost” by a local officer who, I suspect, didn’t want his fiefdom invaded by a middle class twit like me) at last convinced that Labour had learnt, after a decade or so of self indulgence, that being attractive to the electorate was quite a good strategy for a serious political party.
And now I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy a decade under the best British Prime Minister in modern times and am looking forward to a decade under another star performer. Things can go on getting better…
Leafleting in Bloxwich. How things change in 10 years.
Tom,
I was in Oldham East and Saddleworth on a ‘sweltering day’ helping Phil Woolas along with members from Manchester Withington CLP.
At the end of the day, we then retired to the Irish Club in Chorlton to celebrate. What a night I thought we would win by 80 seats and had no idea what would happen. Watching events on the big screen unfold was as joyous was watching the Albion beat Wolves ten nil.
My highlight was Tatton and also the Portillo result. There was also a superb moment at about 1pm when a press release from the Tory Reform Group blamed the defeat on the ‘rank treachery’ of the Tory right. Hilarious.
I think people should remember the service we did by getting rid of a party that ignored vast sections of the nation and the vulnerable. Ok there are problems now, but people don’t talk about the north/south divide as much and unemployment is no longer such a major political issue. We should also be reflective and humble about things that have not gone as well as one would hoped.
I was at work in the morning but got the afternoon off. Came home to find my youngest son had set up committee room there and a woman I had never seen before offered me a sandwich! But where is she now?? Where was she in 1993??? My son then had me knocking on doors GOTV until 9.50 and even then kept saying… ooh…its close? In the morning we had our first labour MP since 1945. I got up for work and found five or six young labour activists lounging everywhere, they had never been to bed.
Linda
Started a new job on the 1st May and then staying up until the early hours celebrating the victory. Then having to go to work tired and with a sore head the following morning.
10 years ago I was in Germany in a tiny village on top of a hill working my little bottom off in a hotel.
Those were the days….
I was in Tooting helping Tom Cox to an improbable 15 thousand majority. At the count, the Tooting result came in quickly so we headed next door to watch Mellor and Goldsmith trade insults at the Putney count.
I had an interview the next day and got the job despite an hour’s sleep. Big pay rise. Things really were getting better for me under a Labour Government.
Dim as anything, me. I forgot about the election and booked a trip to see some mates in Turin. When I remembered was too late to get a postal vote, so I missed the whole thing, campaigning and voting. Fretted about the result (after our seat losing by 200 votes in 1992), but I needn’t have. Went to a party in the evening, and was impressed by how much my hosts knew about il Signore Blair’s victory. Scoured the town for a landslide edition Guardian the next day which I still have saved in a drawer. Came home feeling pretty thick as well as sunburned.
Was also in Chiswick as you’ll remember – I recall looking at the Reading sheets at 9:45 and seeing there were no virtually no more promises we could knock-up. I then remember travelling down the High Road listening to the Exit Poll then staying up all night and having a bacon sarnie at 7 the next morning.
I had this mad idea of starting off in Northamptonshire where I was a County Council candidate, then making a mad dash to Brentford & Isleworth so I could be in the thick of a key seat. Glad I was though – was a great night. Just thinking we’d have won Edgbaston, Basildon and many of the other notables by this time of night (1:15am) – Southgate was to come a couple of hours later…
I was running a committee room dealing with all the leafy villages that surround Harlow as Bill Rammell got rid of that little bearded bloke who looked a bit like the Master from Doctor Who.
Even in the gravel drives and BMW set of classic commuter country I had over 1500 promises to knock up spread across what seemed to be most of the county with half mile walks between front doors. Neal Lawson would not have approved.
I then went down to the London Regional Labour Party Office and sat on the phones getting updates from activists in counts before they appeared on TV. I remember the General Secretary of the London Region, the legendary Terry Ashton, saying to me as I informed him we had just won Finchley and Golders Green that “if we win Wimbledon and Southgate I am retiring because the world has gone mad”. Five minutes later Southgate phoned.
I then headed off to Royal Festival Hall and remember a lot of conversation with people asking who exactly these people were that we were electing in places like Wimbledon and Finchley. So much of our campaign was about the 90 key seats that we had taken our eye off the seats we knew we had no chance of winning. Just who were Roger Casale and Rudi Vis?
But when Tony arrived we just laughed at Prescott and Mandelson dancing and the sun coming up just as Tony talked about a new dawn. Perfect days. And, I remain a faithful supporter looking forward to a fourth under Gordon and beyond.
It will never be so perfect again though.
Knocking up the Sighthill/ Wester Hailes estates in Edinburgh Pentlands… such a sense of hope… we were concentrating on getting the core vote out… rumours came through in the afternoon that turnout was high in the Tory areas… and because we hadn’t got a full canvass there we didn’t realise that many were voting Labour as well.. we (the uni Labour club) had hired Pleasance bar (now more usually used as a comedy venue during the Edinburgh Festival) and as the evening wore on it packed out… seeing Jim Murphy win eastwood and thinking that pentlands would be the only seat with a Tory MP left in Scotland – and then the shock of actually getting Rifkind out… the elation and the sunshine the next morning… watching a beaming Jim Callaghan in the studio as the sunshine flooded through our kitchen window asked to comment: “Like 1945 in spades” he said. And it was…
Waving to Jeremy Corbyn on the way to vote in Islington. Watching the results come in that evening with mates, and having to run down a road in Clapham with only my shirt on because Labour had taken St Albans, where a Tory mate of mine lived. He agreed to streak if that happened, and I was drunk and happy enough to join him.
Postscript – two weeks later, finding my invitation to the Festival Hall bash (earned by doing some phone canvassing at Walworth Road, I think), unopened, upside down next to the phone in my flat. I could have been there. Gutted.
I’d done a bit of campaigning in the nearest marginal, Cleethorpes, before going back home to Hull.
Still remember walking along my street the next early morning, with the bright sunshine and thinking ‘wow’ – it had, actually, happened.
The last few days of the campaign I’d managed to convince myself not to listen to the polls any more – that we might not have managed it afterall.
Campaigning in the seat we were twinned with, Hayes and Harlington. People randomly turning up offering to help. Seeing seats fall that no-one even knew were targets. Laughing at the gallows humour when the 2nd Tory MP was returned that now at least they could have a leadership election. Door opening at 6am from the pub to bright, streaming sunlight.
Perhaps slight regret that we weren’t freed to help Uxbridge a little….
Last bank holiday, the BBC parliament channel were showing the 1992 election. Watching the end of that, it seems amazing that all the pundits were confidently predicting that we could never win again.
I remember voting for a Labour Government.
I’m still waiting for it.
Gary.
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