Labour’s triumph in the UK General Election is a key moment in our recent political history. What marks it out is not just the scale of the victory but that it brings to office a party which has spent 14 long years in the wilderness.

What makes it special is that it is only the second time since 1945 when the pendulum of politics has changed direction.

Labour’s victory just after the Second World War saw the start of a strong swing of the political pendulum. The NHS, social security, the retreat from Empire, comprehensive education. All these may have had their roots in earlier times but their real impetus and development can be drawn in a line from 1945 to 1979.

From 1945 to 1974 there were ten general elections and the party in power changed five times. What didn’t change was the broad direction of travel. Conservative governments may have had different degrees of policy emphasis but they followed an agenda set by that key post-war Labour government.

Tax rates rose, the social security net widened, the NHS grew, the government had five-year plans and it intervened in industry, Britain retreated, Union leaders came for tea at Downing Street.

In the beginning this change brought good: better healthcare longer healthier lives, education improved social mobility, and the unions helped bring fairer play in the workplace.

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As time went on, the minuses began to outweigh the pluses. Comprehensive education reduced rather than increased social mobility, too much spending brought budget crises, the pound sterling progressively declined, inflation destroyed savings, union power grew so great managers could no longer manage, Britain’s economic capability declined, strikes left rubbish in our streets.

In 1979, the pendulum swung the other way and brought a Conservative government into office with a very different agenda. A belief that deregulation, lower taxes, privatisation, curbing union power, and free capital flows was the right way to go.

The transition was painful but much of that pain arose from dealing with problems which had been shirked over the previous 30 years. And it worked.

With a little help from General Galtieri, the Conservative agenda created a reinvigorated Britain and a dramatic rise in living standards across all groups in society. Business became more efficient, career opportunities increased, people were more free to do what they wanted and that freedom drove economic growth.

The economic landscape had completely changed. For three elections Labour resisted reality and only returned to power when Tony Blair embraced the Conservative economic agenda.

The period from 1979 to 2024 is 45 years. Eleven elections, only two changes of the party in power but essentially the same economic agenda. Where did it start to go wrong? When did the bad start to outweigh the good? It’s hard to pinpoint when it did but it did.

Obscene levels of executive pay based on cutting costs rather than growing revenues and jobs, stagnant real wages, public services shrivelled. Private equity makes millions but fails to spread it around. Government in-fighting and low-grade sleaze. Too many people left behind as those with assets grew richer. Young people unable to buy homes.

The voters want somebody else to have a go - as the SNP will find out in 2026 - and have turned to Labour but with a strange lack of enthusiasm. Few believe in politicians or that they can make a difference.

This is Starmer’s luck, his opportunity. The voters want change but their specific expectations are low and they have delivered power to a party expressly promising to provide change but with the detail rather vague. There is a short window in which to be radical. The pendulum has swung again.

What would be a tragedy is if Stramer gave in to those in his party who, out of real power for 45 years, want to steer hard to the left and back to the 1970s. If he lets the pendulum swing back too far, the good aspects of the last near half century risk being washed away.

To avoid this he needs to embrace some things which Labour inherently find difficult.

Tony Blair

Privatisation is an example. It now has a bad name because of poor regulation and greedy owners but just think back to how useless British Rail and BT were in the 1970s. The Labour Government should set a tougher agenda and regulate more effectively but recognise that the private sector delivers services more efficiently than the state and with money in short supply, efficiency and private capital are key.

The NHS is an even greater example. Just providing more and more money is not the answer, reform is absolutely necessary too. The first must not be supplied without the second being in place.

Taxation needs to go up but too much and on the wrong things to please diehard socialists risks a smaller, not a larger, tax take in the long run.

Starmer needs to increase economic growth and, to be guided by a simple mantra “what works” and in particular, to make changes which will have their real impact in 15 years, not five. If he is brave and acts swiftly, he may slow the pendulum’s swing. Time is not his friend.