Blair and Brown: the New Labour Revolution - some questions for students

I would strongly encourage all A Level students to watch it. It comes with the important caveat emptor, that is does contain some strong language.

Further to my blog post yesterday (New Labour documentary | tutor2u), the start of the BBC series was a gripping and informative watch. As we come to expect from the BBC, it had excellent production values.

Here are some questions based on watching the programme last night, that might provide some guidance to the best bits.

• Define what Blair means by “progressive politics”?
• Who was the Labour leader when Margaret Thatcher won a landslide victory in 1983?
• What did Blair say was “the right idea, but badly executed”?
• What does Brown say lost Labour the 1987 election?
• What did the (opinion) polls say immediately before the 1992 election was called? How can we explain this?
• By of a voting box geeky question, but in absolute terms how many votes did John Major get at the 1992 election?

Extension question: what parallels can be drawn between the modernising project that Labour underwent and the internal battles the current leader is having with his party?