Labour is resurgent – and prepared for power

Editorial: New Labour took most of a decade to rebuild the browbeaten party. With these election results, Keir Starmer has shown, with his steady and ruthless determination to become electable again, he has done the same within a single parliamentary term

All the indications are that Keir Starmer’s ‘changed Labour Party’ will surpass the landslide victory won by Tony Blair in 1997 (Dave Brown)

So acclimatised is the nation to Labour’s electoral dominance that it takes some effort to recall a time when the party seemed doomed to be in the wilderness for a generation. It is not so distant.

Only three years ago, almost to the day – Thursday 6 May 2021 – the Conservatives took the Labour heartland seat of a Hartlepool on a 16 per cent swing. It was highly unusual for an opposition party to lose a safe seat to the governing party, and it was such a dispiriting outcome for Sir Keir Starmer, then fairly new to the role of Labour leader, that he thought about quitting.

It was just as well for him that he persevered. Now, his party has regained control of Hartlepool Council, and enjoyed almost unalloyed success across the land. The Labour win at the Blackpool South by-election came with a 26 per cent swing, which is just as “seismic”, as Sir Keir says, as the other ones over the past year.