This is the Guardian.

Hello, this is Noshine. We're on a break over Christmas and are revisiting some of our

favorite episodes from this year. From Blair to Starma, Labor's Path to Power, Part 2.

This is a second of a two-part series looking back at the period that ran up to the general election in 1997.

The Guardian's political correspondent, Kiran Stacy, asks the question, what lessons can

labour learn from Tony Blair's election campaign? Good afternoon the Prime Minister has gone to Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament.

When Mr Major gets back to Downing Street within the next hour, he's expected to confirm

the general election.

It's March 1997, and the election that Britain has been waiting for for over a year has just been called.

Good morning. I'd like to formally confirm that I've seen Her Majesty the Queen this morning and sought

her permission for a dissolution of Parliament and a general election on the 1st of May.

The Labour Party of course has been waiting for much longer than just a year.

In fact, it has now been out of power for 18,

and finally has a historic chance to re-enter Downing Street.

At long last, we're delighted the campaigns underway.

I mean, of course, the choice will be between a conservative party

that most people feel has run out of ideas and is out of date

and a new and revitalised Labour Party.

Yesterday we heard how Labour prepared for this moment in the year before the election.

The intense internal policy battles, the strict message discipline, and the newly built rapid

rebuttal unit. Today, how it managed in those last six weeks to get over the line.

And what, if anything, Kirsdarma can learn from that.

...