Creation Records and the birth of New Labour

Tony Blair at The Brit Awards

As we see on the news every day, most politicians aren’t to be trusted, but back in 1996 there was a hope for change after nearly 17 years of successive Conservative governments. Everyone knew your average Brit had suffered from Thatcher’s policies and it was time to get rid of the corrupt party.

Creation had taken on the pop charts and won so it was the perfect time to take on the politicians.

The clip below shows the story of Creation’s links with the Labour Party and how with Alan McGee and Andy Saunders helped the party to power.

We all have our opinions now looking back, but at the time it seemed genuinely exciting.

On the night of the election watching the results come in was great fun as one by one the old Tory government were kicked out of power. Journalist Martin Bell was so angry with how unethical the Tories had become he added to the fun by standing for election and beating Neil Hamilton in one of the safest Conservative seats. It felt like revenge.

Sadly, the reality of what was happening was that the differences between the two main political parties were shrinking and within a year this became quite apparent, the NME ran the front cover below just 10 months later and a few years later Tony Blair took the country to war.

NME