Tony Blair on the differences between New Labour and today's politics

Sir Tony Blair has been out of power in government for 17 years, yet he believes he's learned almost as much after leaving Number 10 as when he was in it.

One of the key insights from the revolutions in behavioural economics and neuroscience over the past 20 years is the extent to which our biases and experiences shape our understanding of new information.

Even when we try not to, we often interpret the present in terms of the past.

It's only natural, then, that the recent election of a Labour prime minister after more than a decade of Conservative rule has sparked comparisons with the last time this happened in 1997.

Both Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Tony are lawyers by training.

Both have positioned themselves against the Left of the Labour Party.

But the comparisons mostly stop there.

"The zeitgeist today is different," says Mr Blair.

In 1997, New Labour was coming to power not just at the turn of the century, but of the millennium, and the national mood was "pretty optimistic."

Today?

"More anxious."

Britain is not, as Sir John Major, Mr Blair's predecessor, had hoped, a "nation at ease with itself."

In particular, the country's recent economic history, like many Western democracies, tells a story of shocks and stagnation: a "vicious cycle of increased costs, increased taxes, and poor outcomes."

Aside from the differences in the UK's situation under their respective leaderships, Sir Tony and Sir Keir have distinct political instincts and personal experiences.

Mr Blair, while concerned about inequality and the plight of the poor, wrote in his memoir, *A Journey*, that he identified more with the aspirations of the middle class than the anxieties of the working class.

He aimed to move Labour beyond traditional class struggles.

Sir Keir, on the other hand, has stated that his "project" is "to return Labour to the service of working people, to become once again the natural vehicle for their hopes and aspirations."