The playwright David Hare once said that the only Labour leader who never wanted to turn the clock back for a single second was Tony Blair. Hare meant that, as a leader, Blair told the most potent political story there is. He was the future. The poet and critic William Empson wrote that all narrative can be reduced to seven types of ambiguity. In politics that can be further reduced to two. During its term of office a government is forced to argue that the times call for more of the same. But by far the more exciting story is that it is time for a change, from a candidate with a call on the future.

Labour’s three winners, Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony