The UK is enjoying a nostalgic return to the nineties at the moment – just without the same level of cash for the government to splash, the chancellor has said.
John Healey picked out the upcoming new tour by Oasis – a favourite of PM Andy Burnham – and the return of TV’s Gladiators – beloved by Housing Secretary Angela Rayner – as proof the decade is making a comeback.
But in his first speech to Labour conference after being appointed to the role by Burnham in July, he flagged one major difference.
Healey said: ‘I have to level with you, conference, the money New Labour had in the nineties is simply not there now.
‘Economic growth under Gordon [Brown] was more than double the Tory years that followed. And Britain has it harder now.’
The new chancellor had a front-row seat for New Labour’s rise to power three decades ago – an era itself undergoing a revival thanks to popular TikTok fan edits of politicians at the time.
He was first elected in Tony Blair’s 1997 election landslide, which ended 18 years of Conservative governments, and was soon appointed to the Treasury under Gordon Brown.
In his speech to attendees in Liverpool, Healey recalled an incident behind the scenes at the party’s 1999 conference in Bournemouth when Brown arrived back from an IMF meeting shortly before his keynote address.
He said: ‘I was the new boy. There were big names there – Ed Miliband, Douglas Alexander, Ed Balls.
‘Suddenly, Gordon was just about to go on, and I said, ‘Gordon needs a red tie’, and the only person in the room wearing a red tie was me.
‘So in 1999 in Bournemouth, Gordon made his speech as chancellor with my tie. I did get it back.’
Healey revealed Brown signed the tie for him and he had never worn it since – before revealing he was wearing it for his first conference speech as chancellor.
Beyond the reminiscence about the Blair years, Healey spent much of today’s speech explaining why he believes he faces such massive challenges bringing significant growth back to the UK economy.
They included ‘Cameron’s austerity’, ‘Johnson’s Brexit’ and ‘Truss’s mini budget’, as well as centralisation and deindustrialisation over several decades.
But he insisted Labour was ‘stepping up again’, as the party has done before ‘when times are tough’ by setting up the NHS and Nato after the Second World War and leading the response to the global financial crash.
Among the announcements he made in the speech was a broader rollout of the Local Apprenticeships Service to every mayoral authority in England, and a £300 million investment from Rolls Royce in factories around the UK.
Healey also confirmed £6 billion of contracts to build docks for new submarines will be handed to British companies employing British workers.
Among the other top Labour figures who spoke on the main stage today were Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.
The final full day tomorrow will culminate with Andy Burnham’s first speech to Labour conference as prime minister.
In it, he is expected to set out more details of his plans to introduce a national care service for England, as he confirmed in an interview on the BBC yesterday.
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