On Tuesday 10th December, Rod Cartwright talked to 50 sixth form students and three pupils from Hill form about the rise and legacy of New Labour.
Having worked closely with the Labour party during the 1997 election campaign at Millbank Tower, he was in an excellent position to detail the key elements behind Tony Blair’s astonishing success. Being a public relations specialist, it was no surprise that he stressed the simplicity of communication, the clarity of the message and the balance of style and substance portrayed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown respectively as keys to New Labour’s electoral success. He then put forward a convincing case for Tony Blair as one of, if not the, most successful prime ministers of the 20th Century.
Rod looked at the decline of absolute poverty, the depth of constitutional change and the improvement in public services as key indicators of a successful premiership. He was put under pressure by some pupils who maintained that he could not be forgiven for the humanitarian disaster of the Iraq War whilst Mr Jones blamed Blair for hubris after the UK’s successful intervention in Kosovo. Clearly, few prime ministers divide opinion like Blair does but with one of his greatest achievements, the Good Friday agreement, under threat from Brexit it was fitting that his legacy was discussed in election week.
Mr Nilsson (Head of Politics)