In the run-up to its landslide victory in 1997 one of the strengths of New Labour was its ability to keep secrets. Though plans were made for the party’s first 100 days in power, nothing important leaked. Nothing.

It would not be that way at the end of Tony Blair’s time as prime minister when the TB-GB wars were at their height, but at the beginning Labour’s top team were utterly clamlike.

I’m delighted to say such caution was washed away yesterday on BBC Radio 4’s The Reunion. Hosted by Kirsty Wark, the show brings together key players from a moment in history to reflect on what they did then, and any lessons that might apply now, the hope being that time’s passing will loosen previously sealed lips.

The programme, repeated this Friday or available on BBC Sounds now, featured Jack Straw, then home secretary, Harriet Harman, social security secretary and minister for women, Sue Nye and Anji Hunter, advisers to Gordon Brown and Tony Blair respectively, Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff, and Alex Allan, principal private secretary to Tony Blair.

First to spill the beans was Hunter. She said Jon Sopel, then BBC political reporter, now a leading podcaster with The News Agents, got in touch with her on election day.

“He actually rang me up in the afternoon - I hope he doesn’t mind me saying that - to give me the exit poll. I said to him, ‘Jon, don’t tell anyone else’.” Hunter couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

(It should be noted that this was 1997, years before John Curtice, the nation’s favourite psephologist, took over responsibility for exit polls and the all-important 10pm prediction.)

Blair told the party there would be no celebration until the final result was in, and even then, given the size of the majority, nothing over the top. “If people think power has gone to our head they will hate us,” he told Hunter.

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Other tidbits show how much effort goes into ensuring a smooth transfer of power. Powell, for example, was given a tour of the Downing Street flats while John Major and Ken Clarke were still living in them. Fortunately, the prime minister and his chancellor were out at the time of the visit.

Listening to The Reunion one was struck by the similarities between 1997 and 2024, and the profound differences.

There were early stories about ministers and advisers jostling for access to Blair, as there have been with Starmer, and tales of advisers and civil servants clashing.

Some things went wrong in 1997, decisions made that ministers came to regret. Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, wished he had never used the phrase “ethical foreign policy”, said Powell.

“Not because he penned an unethical foreign policy, just because it set up a pratfall for him every time anything happened.”

More embarrassment came when the government tried to ride the coattails of “Cool Britannia” with a party in Downing Street. Oasis’s Noel Gallagher was pictured shaking Blair’s hand. “We slightly overdid it on that in the same way as Harold Wilson with the Beatles,” said Powell.

Of far greater consequence was New Labour’s insistence on keeping to Tory spending plans for the first two years, a promise made in the run-up to the election. Jack Straw recalled John Major, post-election, asking why Labour was sticking to proposals that the Conservatives themselves would have torn up had they won.

Sticking with the plan meant “two years of great difficulty” said Harman, during which the government forced through unpopular policies, beginning with a cut in lone parent benefits. Much muttering among Labour MPs followed but Downing Street held firm.

There are eerie similarities between the Starmer government’s refusal to lift the two-child benefit cap, and New Labour’s reluctance to back down on benefit cuts.

Yet for all the connections between the Labour government of 1997 and the current administration, there are some crucial differences and they are not working in Starmer’s favour.

First, Blair and Brown inherited a country that was, in John Major’s opinion, in “extremely good economic shape”. Rachel Reeves, Brown’s eventual successor as a Labour Chancellor, has been saying the opposite, claiming the Tories have left her with a £22 billion hole to fill in this financial year.

To help plug the gap, Reeves is making the winter fuel payment for pensioners means-tested, a move that will deprive more than 10 million elderly people of up to £300.

The policy has landed badly in Scotland where temperatures are lower for longer. And who brought in the winter fuel payment in the first place? That would be Gordon Brown in 1997. Brown is also in favour of lifting the two-child benefit cap, saying that retaining it is “condemning children to poverty”.

At the same time as Reeves has been cutting fuel payments to pensioners and keeping the two-child cap, she has given above-inflation rises to public sector workers. Train drivers in England are the latest to benefit, with 4.5% this year, plus backdated increases to 2022.

While popular with staff, the wage increases are attracting flak from the Conservatives and certain newspapers. It is increasingly likely the demands will spread to Scotland, where the government is already warning of even tougher times ahead.

As Wark reminded listeners in The Reunion, by the time of the 1997 party conference, Blair’s approval rating was 93%. Barring a miracle, Starmer will get nowhere near that.

Should he have an hour to spare, it is worth catching The Reunion, not least for the advice Powell gives at the end. When a government is first elected, he said, its political capital, or goodwill, is at its absolute maximum. Don’t dither. Spend that capital wisely and quickly to get the benefit later.

The 1997 government should have embarked on public sector reforms right from the start, said Powell.

“We wanted to be sure we had a second term. We were very cautious, still carrying that blasted vase the Labour Party has to carry everywhere to make sure it doesn’t drop it,” he said.

So far, Starmer and Reeves are spending their political capital on above-inflation pay rises while cutting winter fuel payments (with more to come in the Budget). It is a gamble. According to the government, the pay rises will cost less than the damage done by strikes. But how many increases can be accommodated before the balance tips the other way?