I and many of my friends are old enough to remember Labour of the pre-Thatcher years. Before I continue I should point out I consider myself "of the right" - somewhere around where the old One-Nation Tory majority used to be, with the likes of Heseltine, Clarke, etc, or even a little further right. Even Cameron claimed to be one-nation until he dreamed up a referendum to subdue the extremist wing of the party...

Most of that friend group are similar "natural Tories". Business owners, and comfortably off rather than all billionaire hedge fund owners or trade unionists and manual workers. 9 out of 10 Labour policies resonate well with us as a rejection of the clear excess and mistakes of neoliberalism. Of the brutal treatment of disabled, poor, and society generally. Of the application of market to utterly irrelevant things. Not as a vote to return to the Labour's Trotskyite Militant Tendency and idiocy of the seventies. We don't need to reinvent history and blame a demographic that knows no better...

I should probably add that for some the 1 in 10 policy that we dislike can sometimes be a vote killer or of veto level. :)

Most of the seventies problems can be explained by a) Nixon abandoning the Gold Standard and disassembly of Bretton Woods, both of which were hugely inflationary and b) the oil crisis. The Conservatives did no better in that era, and often markedly worse - fiscally, on labour relations, on balance of payments, even on defence. Heath did so poorly in the last administration that we had a three day week. Worse than Callaghan's later Winter of Discontent that brought Thatcher. Interestingly Callaghan's Labour were governing strongly in opposition to the unions during that winter...

The world has changed a lot since New Labour. Not that Corbyn is necessarily offering what the world needs now, but the lessons that led to New Labour do need to be questioned. The Internet age has brought both corporations and wealthy people a lot of dominance at the cost of the young and the poor, so "socialism" doesn't have the stigma that it used to among some demographics.

The Tory move to the right could give Labour a lot of room to maneuver as an actual left-wing party, rather than seeking centrist votes. As I said, Corbyn himself may not be the one to lead it there, but I'd suggest that the 90s were a long time ago and it may be time to find some new lessons.