When Tony Blair declared that he wanted Britain to be “a young country again” during his 1995 Labour Party conference speech, he had no idea that his words would eventually be cut, stitched and repurposed for a TikTok — complete with lo-fi Arial subtitles and Be My Baby by The Ronettes as the backing music — nearly 30 years later.
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words → declare → music
If he had known, he probably would have been thrilled.
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he → know → ?
Especially considering that the video clip, courtesy of an account called “The Blair Era”, is currently sitting pretty at 218,000 views.
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clip → consider → views
This might come as a shock to anyone who had a fully developed frontal lobe in 1997, but my generation is absolutely obsessed with New Labour.
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generation → come → Labour
In fact, going through a New Labour obsession is almost a rite of passage for us Gen Zs.
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going → go → Zs
Believe me — I did it.
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I → believe → it
I watched the documentaries, I scoured the Wikipedia pages, I read Alastair Campbell’s diaries cover to cover.
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I → watch → diaries
You know, typical young person stuff.
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You → know → ?
This slightly mind-boggling resurgence is the result of various seemingly unrelated ingredients forming a perfect, hyper-comforting concoction of nostalgia — now in vertical video form!
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ingredients → boggle → form
This bite-sized, aesthetic-focused version of politics goes down extra smoothly and avoids any of the uncomfortable lumps (Iraq War) and bumps (tuition fees).
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version → focus → lumps
Once we had eaten our way through the core of the 2000s, we decided to cannibalise the 1990s
While it may be peaking now, the path was actually laid many years ago, starting with Gen Z’s fascination with all things Y2K.
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path → eat → Y2K.
Then, once we had eaten our way through the core of the 2000s, we decided to cannibalise the 1990s.
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we → eat → 1990s
Noel Gallagher and Damien Hirst attended Blair’s victory party at Number 10, the Kennedys dined with Blair in Washington and Alastair Campbell (Blair’s chief spokesman and press secretary) coined the phrase “people’s princess” following Diana’s untimely death.
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Campbell → attend → death
We love Blair vs Brown
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We → love → Brown
Because if one thing’s going to win over Gen Z more than celebrities, it’s a vaguely homoerotic feud.
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it → go → celebrities
For many, it was the first time they had heard about it — after all, the eldest Gen Zs were too busy wailing in their cots to remember the sound of Things Can Only Get Better, me included.
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me → hear → sound
Last year, Gen Z fangirls paired old clips from the 1990s and 2000s with trending audio, including Charli xcx’s modern-day conflict anthem Girl, So Confusing and Frank Ocean’s White Ferrari, racking up hundreds of thousands of views.
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fangirls → pair → views
This newfound obsession with New Labour isn’t operating in a vacuum — it’s benefiting Labour politicians right now.
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it → operate → politicians
This year, the same accounts that posted Blair vs Brown fan edits boosted Andy Burnham’s social media profile ahead of the Makerfield by-election by creating montages of him during the New Labour days, when he was junior minister under Blair before joining Brown’s cabinet in 2007.
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he → post → 2007
Another to have benefited from the warm glow of New Labour nostalgia is Campbell, who has built a sizeable following in recent years, as well as a podcast career via The Rest is Politics.
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Rest → benefit → years
“Quality wins through in the end,” says Campbell of New Labour’s resurgence.
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Campbell → win → resurgence
“Gen Z has a lot better taste than the old-fart generation gives them credit for.”
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generation → have → credit
He cites his forthcoming book, Persivilience (a portmanteau of perseverance and resilience), saying: “One of the examples I give [in the book] is that much of the media at the time spent so much time and energy trying to portray us as ‘spin-tastic’ and only concerned about power for power’s sake, whereas in truth New Labour was a serious political project which promised things could only get better — and they did.”
It makes sense that my generation would seek out its last memory of a country on the up
Ava Evans, political editor of Gen Z-favourite media site PoliticsJOE, agrees — to an extent.
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Evans → cite → extent
“I think the big crossover is this message of hope,” she says.
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she → think → hope
“Burnham’s conference speech was really about trying to push and pedal this message of hope, which is very similar to what Blair was doing in 1997.”
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Blair → try → 1997
Evans believes Gen Z “romanticise” the era of New Labour because “it was a time of economic upturn,” she says.
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she → believe → upturn
“It was a time when your parents could get takeaways and you could go on holiday maybe once a year.
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you → get → holiday
Whereas now no one’s got any money.”
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one → get → money
On a more aesthetic level, Evans also believes the New Labour resurgence has something to do with the revival of digital cameras, camcorders and lo-fi video recording.
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resurgence → believe → cameras
“I wonder if that becoming ‘chic’ means a lot of political footage that was filmed in that low resolution back in the 1990s and early 2000s has now been romanticised too,” she says.
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she → wonder → 1990s
In a world where it feels like things can only get worse, it makes sense that my generation would seek out its last memory of a country on the up.
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generation → feel → up
Yes, it glosses over some of the bleaker aspects of that period, but TikTok doesn’t trade in nuance.
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TikTok → gloss → nuance
And after an adolescence scuppered by Covid, a cost of living crisis and university strikes, stumbling upon a politician promising to make Great Britain a “young country again” is intoxicating.
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Britain → scupper → politician
Can you really blame us for clinging to a crumb of hope?
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you → blame → hope
The Aporia
