It is hard now to remember the mood in Britain as it was in 1997, as the 18-year period of Conservative rule ended and Tony Blair’s Labour party won in a landslide.

There was an overwhelming sense that it was time, that this young, articulate, handsome leader was the man for the moment. The mood extended everywhere: even Hove and Wimbledon, whose very names epitomise the tea-and-cucumber-sandwich classes, voted Labour. Among intellectuals, the embrace was close to universal.