Later this summer, on 2 August, Tony Blair’s government will reach its most significant milestone yet. It will become the longest-serving Labour government in history, surpassing the record of six years and three months held by Clem Attlee between July 1945 and October 1951.
There is no denying the magnitude of the achievement. Tony Blair has demonstrated that Labour can indeed be the natural party of government. He is already the first Labour leader to win two consecutive full terms, and there is little reason why he should not go on to a third.
Blair has secured his electoral triumphs by creating a coalition around New Labour. His particular talent has been to draw together widely divergent and often contradictory interests. Before the 1997 election he was able to appeal simultaneously to big business and the trade unions, to the young and the old, to the working and middle classes, to feminists and supporters of family values, to unionists and republicans, to pro-Europeans as well as the Eurosceptic Murdoch press.
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