Darrell K Morris - Professional Photographer based in London, UK

Overaahhhh… Apologies, to the late great Roy Orbison by using his wonderfully heartfelt and evocative lyric/s on such a spurious blog post, which brings us full circle on what was the reign of the party that was known as New Labour. Tonight, as I made my way home on the No3 bus, I mulled over this likely being the last time I’ll make this journey home along Whitehall and Parliament with Comrade Broon at it’s helm. As I made my way past Brian Haws and his hardy group of Anti-War demonstrators by Parliament Square to Westminster Green, which will inside the next 24 hours turn into Spin Alley or maybe green once more amidst the tented homes of the world’s television crews. The lone piper that had been playing his sad refrain outside Charing Cross station, seemed to be the perfect analogy to what is about to become the death throes of a Labour Government and a million miles away from the jubilant scenes down the road at Millbank thirteen years earlier.

All those years ago, I remember (slightly shamefully now) that there was a great deal of hope that Tony Blair was going to be at the forefront of pushing through a progressive manifesto on the back of a sweeping election night victory, that washed away a corrupt and ineffectual government that had been finished five years earlier, but due to the scaremongering tactics of  The Sun and Neil Kinnock’s all-singing and all-dancing premature victory rally in Sheffield meant we would have to wait to get rid of the Tories. Not even the promise of Phil Collins leaving the country in the wake of Kinnock entering No10 was enough for the Great British people. So, we waited and in late April and early May 1997 I was given the task of documenting the Labour campaign in my hometown on Shrewsbury. It seemed to be of no consequence that I had only picked a camera in anger for the first time a few months before and I had no experience whatsoever. I had shown a bit of interest in documenting a election campaign (it could have been the Lib Dems if they had been in touch sooner) and they probably thought they could get some free publicity. I was then a hopelessly naive young student about to start my photo career (imagine a more clean cut uglier Ian Brown with Andrew Marr’s ears, but minus the drugs, Strangeways and threats to Air Hostesses) with a battered old second-hand camera, which is now third-hand and even made an appearance once more earlier this year. I got to document the historic moment when Shrewsbury turned from blue to red (for the first and still only time) as Paul Marsden defeated old school Tory cad Derek Conway followed by the demise of Portillo and Mellor and viewing bleary eyed and rather drunkely  Blair’s ‘New Dawn’ speech as the sun rose over London.

Sadly, all these years on I can only see a reverse of what happened back in 1997 and the Blair-Lite candidate that is David Cameron and his New Conservatives (with infant drawn tree logo) are about to take hold of political power (with or without the help of the Lib Dems). Despite the result, hopefully this election will see the Lib Dems become a valid political force and no longer just a protest vote and that the Labour party shall drop the new, grow up and give up on the Blairist vision for the party once and for all and return to it’s roots. Throw in the possible victories for the Greens in Brighton, Norwich and down the road in Lewisham and Depford and I’ll be smiling.

So, today instead I shall be off viewing some artist studios around South East London and then making my over to Barking, where whatever happens nationally could be if not overshadowed at least marred by the unthinkable BNP victory. So, if you have had enough of politicians instead maybe go and make you’re views known to the non-politician Richard Barnbrook who could enter parliament on a manifesto of hate and ignorance, which would be even worse than a Tory government. Things can only better, indeed.