Another New Dawn? What Starmer's Team Can Learn From 1997's New Labour

Veterans of Labour's 1997 victory party at the Royal Festival Hall by the end the dancefloor looked like a war zone strewn with dozing bodies - will remember the sense of disbelief and excitement as the scale of the landslide started to materialise.

- Patrick Wintour

David Hill, less self-publicity prone than one or two others in the hugely effective Labour press team, gave out a deep-throated "What!" as he reeled away in disbelief at the sight of a startled Stephen Twigg defeating Michael Portillo in Enfield Southgate. That night, unexpected seat after unexpected seat fell into Labour hands.

After 18 years in the wilderness, celebrations did not come any sweeter than this. As the victorious candidates raced down from their constituency counts to greet each other and the now well-established revellers at the Festival Hall, the euphoria overflowed, as did the drink. Gordon Brown even smiled at Peter Mandelson who found time to dance with John Prescott to the campaign song on repeat: Things Can Only Better.

Tony Blair, up at Sedgefield, stone cold sober and increasingly daunted by the scale of his victory, received reports of the wild celebrations going on down by the Thames, and rang Hill to tell party staff they were going over the top and needed to calm down. Hill told him: "We are about to end 18 years of consecutive Conservative governments and I think it is going to be a little hard to make them all look sombre." From my dim recollection, the idea that Hill was not going to let things go to his head just this once was entirely illusory.

That horse had long bolted.

On finally arriving at the Festival Hall just around 6am, Blair addressed the emotional crowd, many of whom had previously been witness to Labour false dawns, including the bitter disappointments of the 1987 and 1992 elections. Looking around, there were so many faces that had tasted repeated electoral dejection.