'Taking Labour voters who despise Thatcher for granted is a dangerous strategy'

03 December 2023 , 19:35

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Keir Starmer has faced a furious backlash over his comments about Margaret Thatcher

On a book shelf in my sitting room is a “I Still Hate Thatcher” mug. During Covid it went viral around the world by appearing over my shoulder on TV.

So I despair Keir Starmer hailed a Tory heartless leader who hated England’s North, South Wales and Scotland. Taking for granted older traditional Labour voters who still despise the Rusted Lady is a dangerous strategy.

She championed fat cat greed, turbo-charged inequality, flogged public assets on the cheap to mates, closed their industries, sent unemployment soaring to three-million, destroyed council houses and crushed working class communities.

I could go on and Starmer asserting this vindictive Conservative Prime Minister “sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism” overlooks GDP growing faster at a 3.1% yearly average in the supposedly bad 1970s than the 2.7% of her heyday 1980s.

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This Thatcher worship to woo Conservative voters blurs the unpalatable consequences of Right-wing Conservatism that people suffer today - eg dirty water and big bills from her privatisation – so lets the Tories off the hook. Equally suddenly suggesting there are Brexit benefits is another Starmer error when the passionate European of a few years ago surely privately knows that Britain’s best deal was and always will be European Union membership.

I recall when Tony Blair, Gordon Brown (who invited Thatcher into his No 10) and Ed Miliband at some point felt the urge to grab Thatcher’s hem. No good came of it.

Starmer didn’t need to when he’s so far ahead in the polls he’s virtually lapping Sunak and the Tories. Choosing to do so risks fuelling cynicism, letting the real Thatcherites claim a leader almost certainly going to be Labour’s next PM is unprincipled and prepared to change his mind at the drop of Maggie’s handbag.

Reinforcing Right-wing myths that Thatcher somehow saved the nation is a Labour own goal best avoided.

Kevin Maguire