Rewatching the 1997 General Election (bbc iplayer) and memories of it

[skyscraper101]

For a lot of us it was a coming of age election. I was too young to remember much about 92 or 87 or anything before. My whole life until 97 had been lived under the Tories. I knew nothing but a Conservative government ever.

1997 will probably stick with me more than any other election. Things genuinely seemed to get better for a while. But there were a lot of other factors around this, the late 90s was a good time, culturally, musically. The cold war was over. Peace in NI was a real prospect. Bush and 9/11 and the war on terror was not yet a thing. Things got progressively darker since late 2001, and even more so since 2008, and even more so since Brexit, and Covid.

 

[moochedit]

Think i did watch some of the 92 election (was 20 and at uni at the time) although my memory is a bit hazy now. That was a shit one though too young to have watched any earlier than that.

 

[skyscraper101]

The only thing I really remember 1992 was The Sun doing the Neil Kinnock lightbulb front page (which has to be up there with the Truss Lettuce and Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster) in terms of memorable front pages.

Kinnock always seemed like a tool to me anyway, just like Major. So the Tories winning was like give AF. I was 10 years old. More interested in listening to metal and playing my game gear.

 

[kabbes]

In 1992, I was a spoddy teenager standing as the Labour candidate in our pretend school election. It was a very Tory electorate plus who can resist giving the school swot a right shoeing? I lost in a landslide.

A year later, I met John Smith in person and was convinced he was the future. So I was wrong about that too.

 

[kabbes]

Hmm. Memories are coming back. The kid standing for the Lib Dems did better than expected by (a) being the school clown; and (b) putting all his messaging into the popular contemporaneous Spitting Image catchphrase about the Lib Dems of “neither one thing nor the other”. Spitting Image intended this as biting satire but the teenagers of southern Hertfordshire didn’t understand irony and just thought having no policies was a good thing.

 

[DotCommunist]

theirs is a the burke ideal of politician isn't it, the leader of a flock rather than the representative of the demands of real people. And the way they flip on this when its useful to be one or the other is incredible. My mandate from the people of says xxx. Unfortunately the people of xx don't understand the wider party policy which I must endorse over the heads of the sillies who are incapable of knowing better, I am the good shepherd.

 

[colacubes]

In 1992, I was a spoddy teenager standing as the Labour candidate in our pretend school election. It was a very Tory electorate plus who can resist giving the school swot a right shoeing? I lost in a landslide.

A year later, I met John Smith in person and was convinced he was the future. So I was wrong about that too.

Snap! Same happened to me in 1992 as one of the few politically active 15 year olds having been indoctrinated into Labour as a small child by my activist parents. Was always going to happen in one of the safest Tory areas in the country. I was moderately popular so didn't get a complete thrashing, but I was certainly beaten by the Monster Raving Loony candidate as well as the Tories. Think I still beat the Lib Dem mind.

I did not meet John Smith. I do however have a signed photo of Neil Kinnock following my great victory at a colouring competition in the childcare at a regional Labour conference in the late 1980s.

 

[spitfire]

Spent election 1997 in the Dogstar in Brixton, staying up to watch it on the big screen getting twatted.

Was a great night.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Snap! Same happened to me in 1992 as one of the few politically active 15 year olds having been indoctrinated into Labour as a small child by my activist parents. Was always going to happen in one of the safest Tory areas in the country. I was moderately popular so didn't get a complete thrashing, but I was certainly beaten by the Monster Raving Loony candidate as well as the Tories. Think I still beat the Lib Dem mind.

We had a mock election in my school in 1992 and they chucked out the Monster Raving Loony candidate as they did some really funny posters and it became obvious they were going to win by miles.

Turnout was low after that I think. A real political lesson to us all.

 

[Silas Loom]

My school had no truck with mock elections in 1987, then I was backpacking in 1992 and missed the whole thing entirely, so 1997 was the first election I voted in, the only one I have ever watched at a drunken gathering, and by far the most exciting, with jubilation across the land and bucks fizz doled out at work.

2001 and 2005 were foregone conclusions, and then 2010 and 2015 were spoiled by having to produce detailed analysis on the implications for subscribers the day afterwards, so I got into the habit of going to bed early and getting up at 03:00 or 04:00, which sensible but rather antisocial way to watch an election persisted for me into 2017 and 2019.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Didn't have any mock election stuff at school in 1992 that I can recall, though I do remember watching the lunchtime news the day John Smith died (we had a telly in our classroom which we watched when there weren't teachers around), and people seemed pretty shocked/saddened by it. Given the cynical/dark responses to reports at other times e.g. OJ Simpson's Bronco trip and the ATF raid on Mount Carmel (we cheered when the Agent on the roof realised they were shooting back and tried to slide down before he was hit), that marks it out as oddly significant.

I do remember the 1987 mock election in primary school. I stood as SDP-Liberal Alliance and was plausibly bland enough to get voted through to the preliminary hustings, but blew it in the final by showboating and promising FREE SWEETS AND ICE CREAM IF YOU VOTE FOR ME! Can't remember who won, but it was probably the Tory.

 

[Sue]

I do remember the 1987 mock election in primary school. I stood as SDP-Liberal Alliance and was plausibly bland enough to get voted through to the preliminary hustings, but blew it in the final by showboating and promising FREE SWEETS AND ICE CREAM IF YOU VOTE FOR ME! Can't remember who won, but it was probably the Tory.

Wait, what? That lost you the election?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Wait, what? That lost you the election?

Tough crowd

 

[belboid]

Wait, what? That lost you the election?

even then, they knew there was no magic money dairy tree

 

[Sue]

Tough crowd

Probably voted Tory as they didn't want to share the free sweets and ice cream. Bloody Tories.

DaveCinzano not winning here.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Probably voted Tory as they didn't want to share the free sweets and ice cream. Bloody Tories.

DaveCinzano not winning here.

And yet all of the other - completely uncosted! - pledges I put forward they lapped up with nary a complaint in round one

 

[Silas Loom]

In 1992, I was a spoddy teenager standing as the Labour candidate in our pretend school election. It was a very Tory electorate plus who can resist giving the school swot a right shoeing? I lost in a landslide.

A year later, I met John Smith in person and was convinced he was the future. So I was wrong about that too.

He would have been a very good PM. And if you’d predicted his heart attack, the meeting would have become rather awkward.

 

[Lurdan]

In the 1970 mock elections at my school, Mick Gapes (later Mike Gapes MP) was the losing Labour candidate. I recall him attempting to make a speech while people threw bits of paper at him. However the real fun was elsewhere. A lot of us hung around in the art room during the lunch break and spotting that the election allowed for election posters we began producing satirical ones. With all of the wit that 17 year olds are renowned for. This culminated in a series of increasingly pointed posters placed directly opposite the office of an unpopular biology master. Eventually the headmaster arrived and told us that FUN was over.

The first GE I'd have been eligible to vote in was the February 74 one but by then I'd moved from schoolkid radicalism through activist libertarianism (the non-free market kind) towards anarchism. Certainly didn't vote and I don't recall watching the election coverage.

In 1997 I was a 'mere youngster' (lol) of 44. My only real memory is that I REALLY REALLY didn't like the look of Tony Blair. Sadly he far exceeded my extremely low expectations.

 

[kalmatthew]

I was in primary school for the 1997 election and remember being put out that a) when I was in year 6 the following year we didn't get to do a mock election and b) as a political intreasted 10yr old in a Labour household that the party called "The Desevatives" won.

I also remember just after being very proud of my self telling a staunchly Tory freind of my parents "that the flaming torch is finally extinguished". Little shit that I was.

 

[skyscraper101]

I was in primary school for the 1997 election and remember being put out that a) when I was in year 6 the following year we didn't get to do a mock election and b) as a political intreasted 10yr old in a Labour household that the party called "The Desevatives" won.

I also remember just after being very proud of my self telling a staunchly Tory freind of my parents "that the flaming torch is finally extinguished". Little shit that I was.

You joined urban in 2003, so you must've been fairly young at the time then too.

 

[Elpenor]

We had a mock election in 1997, the only election while I was in secondary school. There were Green, Labour, Tory and Lib Dem candidates and we voted in year groups. I supported the Green candidate. The son of Harriet Harman was at the school in a lower year and don’t recall him standing for Labour.

The tories won 5/7 years including my year and the Lib Dems won the other two years.

 

[kalmatthew]

You joined urban in 2003, so you must've been fairly young at the time then too.

Yep introduced to it by a freind in the school computer lab before the filters were any good! I joined shortly before turning 16. I didn't really post very much until I was at Uni and my real posting has largely been in the last few years.

 

[skyscraper101]

A particularly enthusiastic kid at my school was quite vocal about supporting Labour, and people used to constantly shout 'New Labour New Danger' at him. Which was really original.

 

[redsquirrel]

, the late 90s was a good time, culturally, musically. The cold war was over. Peace in NI was a real prospect. Bush and 9/11 and the war on terror was not yet a thing.

Some selective memory here.

There was an awful lot of shite musically and film wise - all those awful brit gangster pics and Cool Britannia. And not just rosy spectacles culture wise.

 

[skyscraper101]

Some selective memory here.

There was an awful lot of shite musically and film wise - all the awful brit gangster pics and Cool Britannia. And not just rosy spectacles culture wise.

There’s always been an awful lot of shite, there’s just an increasingly higher ratio of it every year since the early 2000s

 

[brogdale]

We had a mock election in 1997, the only election while I was in secondary school. There were Green, Labour, Tory and Lib Dem candidates and we voted in year groups. I supported the Green candidate. The son of Harriet Harman was at the school in a lower year and don’t recall him standing for Labour.

The tories won 5/7 years including my year and the Lib Dems won the other two years.

Seem to remember that in the school that I worked in at the time the charismatic Communist candidate won. He's gone on to end up as a major cunt in neoliberal HE. Funny that.

 

[redsquirrel]

Whatever the problems of music streaming it's opened up more variety style and bands than ever.
In contrast the late 90s still had Radio 1, TOTP, etc gatekeeping anything interesting out and playing awful brit-pop trash. There was decent stuff around but it was far harder to hear than recently, For example Alt-country was around but past its first flush, and not making many waves here. The best of shoegazing had finished.

And politically the rapid expansion of capital into Eastern Europe/Russian was something that only market loons can look back on fondly. Likewise the issue with housing, the marketisation of education and health really took off from this point.

 

[belboid]

Seem to remember that in the school that I worked in at the time the charismatic Communist candidate won. He's gone on to end up as a major cunt in neoliberal HE. Funny that.

you taught ernestolynch?!

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

Whatever the problems of music streaming it's opened up more variety style and bands than ever.
In contrast the late 90s still had Radio 1, TOTP, etc gatekeeping anything interesting out and playing awful brit-pop trash. There was decent stuff around but it was far harder to hear than recently, For example Alt-country was around but past its first flush, and not making many waves here. The best of shoegazing had finished.

I think it was still a lot more sub-cultural/scene-y at that point wasn't it. If you were into, say, techno and knew the places to go there was loads of incredibly new, inventive stuff coming through but you'd be much less likely to also listen to jazz.

I think a lot of people feel something has been lost with that, which I get but can't really justify iyswim.

 

[redsquirrel]

Yeah maybe that's true.

Also the late 90s had that awful bloke vibe - lads mags, TFI Friday, etc. Watched a couple of films from that period recently and they've dated as bad (in some ways worse) as stuff from the 70s