4. Just like the Conservatives?

Labour Party, election poster, 1997

To reassure those who feared Labour would not be able to manage the economy, Blair promised to keep within planned Conservative spending plans during the first half of his government and maintain the top rate of tax across the Party’s entire term. It was the Conservatives who now could no longer be trusted on tax, Labour claimed. Blair even presented Labour as the party of business and produced a separate ‘Business Manifesto’ with the support of leading entrepreneurs. If this made Labour appear to be just like the Conservatives, after 1997 Chancellor Gordon Brown found ways to increase funding to the public services.’