For only the fourth time in 50 years, a British political party is heading to its annual conference having just swept from opposition into power. Over the next four days – winter fuel allowance and Sue Gray’s pay permitting – it may be tempting for Labour and their leader to luxuriate in the scale of their victory once more. But Keir Starmer wants to lead a “decade of national renewal”, which means he must do something even rarer: lay the groundwork now to win, and govern for, a full second term.
Thatcher managed it, and so did Blair. But they remain the only two prime ministers to have served two consecutive terms of four years in the history of British mass democracy. David Cameron secured a second win but was soon broken by Brexit; prime ministers before and since have failed even to make it that far. If Starmer really intends to make this a decade of “renewal”, he can start by demonstrating a grasp of this history. Because the prime ministers who have created enduring, transformative governments – like Thatcher, Blair and Clement Attlee – were those who saw beyond the daily whirl, and heeded the deeper forces that were reconfiguring the world. They recognised how the patterns of hope and fear that shape the electorate’s priorities were already starting to change. And they found a way to turn that into a compelling narrative: a story of how what had once been unthinkable was now not just possible, but unavoidable.
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