Keir Starmer has praised Margaret Thatcher for effecting “meaningful change” in Britain in an article directly appealing to Conservative voters to switch to Labour.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the Labour leader said Thatcher had “set loose our natural entrepreneurialism” during her time as prime minister.
“Across Britain, there are people who feel disillusioned, frustrated, angry, worried. Many of them have always voted Conservative but feel that their party has left them,” he said. “I understand that. I saw that with my own party and acted to fix it. But I also understand that many will still be uncertain about Labour. I ask them to take a look at us again.”
In the article, Starmer pointed to Labour prime ministers of the past – Tony Blair and Clement Attleee – as well as Thatcher, as examples of how politicians can effect meaningful change.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/02/voters-have-been-betrayed-on-brexit-and-immigration/
Here is the full article, it doesn’t appear to be behind the Telegraph’s paywall which is helpful.
It’s a pretty nothing piece really, the Thatcher comment is a single sentence within a fuller paragraph, here it is in full.
Every moment of meaningful change in modern British politics begins with the realisation that politics must act in service of the British people, rather than dictating to them. Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism. Tony Blair reimagined a stale, outdated Labour Party into one that could seize the optimism of the late 90s. A century ago, Clement Attlee wrote that Labour must be a party of duty and patriotism, not abstract theory. To build a “New Jerusalem” meant first casting off the mind-forged manacles. That lesson is as true today as it was then.
The main thing for me here is that everyone on the left knows that Thatcher did not act in service of the British people, and very much did dictate to them. Starmer/ghost writer specifically says “sought to drag”, and that is a very different thing compared to “successfully dragged”. However, because the people that read the Telegraph are so delusional that they genuinely believe she did that, they will add that conclusion themselves.
As the article continues it moves on to the impacts of tory lies
While we were moving back towards voters, the Tory Party has been steadily drifting away. Years of sowing empty promises, cynical falsehoods and false dawns is now reaping inevitable consequence. The Tories have talked the talk on fiscal prudence while wasting untold billions, weighing the country down with debt and raising the tax burden to a record high.
The “raising the tax burden” clause even links to a telegraph article specifically addressing income tax paid on pensions. It’s clear that they know who they are talking to, even if it’s not particularly difficult or clever to do that. That paragraph then finishes with:
They have squandered economic opportunities and failed to realise the possibilities of Brexit.
And does not elaborate further, instead they move on to the state of public finances.
This pattern continues throughout the rest of the article is a typical example of talking to people where they are. If a disillusioned telegraph reading Tory voter reads this and it sees Labour as less of a personal threat, that’s a good thing. It may even stop them feeling so impassioned to vote for the incumbent, or maybe it’ll help set them on a path to voting for Labour. Either way that helps come election time.
Is this article the type that is going to motivate me to get up and campaign for Labour next year? No, it isn’t. But it also isn’t aimed at me. Separately, reducing the “us and them” divide is also broadly speaking a good thing.
If we can show a vision of the future where centre-right Tory voters are part of the society we want to build - and here I’m thinking of your typical small c conservative boomer, worked all their life and made good money, comfortable but not rich, recently retired and still living in their detached 1970s “executive” family home, aka the people who benefitted from previous Labour governments - then Labour’s ability and resilliance in government will be much higher.
And yes, I am hoping that when in power Starmer finds ways to do good socialist things, and I know that there’s a risk of being bitterly disappointed.
Yeah the article content really doesn’t seem as bad as the momentum folks are making it out to be, and you raise the salient point that this messaging is speaking to the groups of voters who labour need to bring over to win.
I personally would like to see a few more lefty policies over the next year, but grandstanding and promising the world means nothing if they lose the next election. I get why Starmer has been playing it safe this way, and I get why people are sometimes disappointed with it, but they are in it to win it and that’s a very good thing.
The country is in a real mess and we simply need successive Labour governments to start the long road to recovery. We often talk about how damaging the polarization of politics has become, so reaching across the divide to try and bring voters over shouldn’t be demonised.
Whilst I understand his desire to try and grab some disillusioned mild-far-right-wing votes as the Tories begin to Tory each other into irrelevance, I do worry that I’m hearing a bit too much right-wing appeasement off of this ham baboon and not enough of the “meaningful change” everyone from the centre leftwards has been waiting for for over a decade.
Holy fuck, he’s gross!
Not a great look Sir Kier. I still vote for you, because I’m not an absolute fucking moron, but stuff like this makes me feel a lot less happy about doing so.
Another in a long line of Labour higher ups that don’t want to be part of Labour. He wants to be a Tory.
He wants to govern. That’s always been done by attracting the center of politics.
Ah yes. Margaret fucking Thatcher. The center of politics.
Ah, come on. We both know there’s a large center of UK politics who think “well, say what you want about MT, at least she X”, where X can be something about “had a plan”, “won a war”, “showed those old party bosses”, “got rid of loss-making state businesses” etc.
I’m certainly not implying MT was at the center, merely that AT the center, some people have admiration for the Big Persons on both sides of the aisle.
Labour have already attracted the center of politics, this is an attempt to appeal to the right and will likely lose more votes than gain.
And if it does gain votes and the left coalition party is basically center and the Conservatives are going further right and there’s no chance of PR. Just yuck.
I really don’t think so.
At this point the Tories have done more to ensure labour victory than anyone else. I can’t see how this could do anything other than bolster their votes.
Ok let’s say that you’re pulled by this who are you going to vote for instead the lib Dems? they have about as much chance of achieving power as whatever ukip are currently calling themselves.
Ok let’s say that you’re pulled by this who are you going to vote for instead the lib Dems? they have about as much chance of achieving power as whatever ukip are currently calling themselves.
“What choice do you have?”
A compelling appeal to the voting public. How could that dampen turnout.
It’s called tactical voting in everyone knows about it it’s not some secret conspiracy
Tactical voting is what people do when they think a party is a lesser evil than another party. Having labour stand up and basically say “vote for Labour, we’re not Tories… but don’t worry Tories we will be continuing your policies” does not inspire a strong tactical voting block. As absurd and doomed as our 2 party voting system already is.
😂 he must be silently confident with the polls to come out and say this.
Thatcher: “You turn if you want to”
Starmer: ”Okay”
welp there goes scottish labours chance of beating the snp
Pretty sure the SNP already sealed their own fate in that regard.
I keep saying he’s a tory plant.
I genuinely think it’s more a matter of it being a good idea to just garner as many votes as possible and if that means trying to appeal to the opposition then so be it.
Anyway at this point it’s not like we have any better options.
But if you become your opposition in order to do it you failed. But yeah, you don’t have options. It’s the same thing globally now, until we start making pez dispensers from the rich all we can have is full on fascism or tory-light, except translated to the local version.
Starmer is still a tory plant, I bet you in a couple of years you get proof of this
Thatcher was Labor? WTF?
Nah she was Tory.
It’s like he’s trying to lose voters
I mean, he is trying to win votes. But the lefty crowd on Lemmy would apparently like to continue being governed by tories. In FPTP there is very few other options than pulling in the central crowd.
It’s embarrassing how poor people’s grasp of basic PR is.
This isn’t even politics, this is just incredibly basic business level PR, there is no point having enemies when they can be converted into supporters, even if you only get them to be supporters long enough to vote.
Politician who wants to be successful wants to learn lessons from successful politician.
Oh what a surprise, the 5th columnist has revealed his true colours as a Thatcherite Quisling. “Across Britain, there are people who feel disillusioned, frustrated, angry, worried. Many of them have always voted Conservative but feel that their party has left them,"?
And across Britain, there are people who feel disillusioned, frustrated, angry, worried. Many of them have always voted Labour but feel that their party has left them,
In the words of the song, “never trust a Tory or a Tory in disguise.”
Isn’t it more that it’s worth it for labour to appeal to the opposition voters? It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. I wouldn’t worry necessarily.
It’s like traditional labour voters feel as if labor’s ultimate responsibility is to always piss off the right at all costs, as if that’s going to achieve anything. Nah, cosy up to them by all means.
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
Keir Starmer has praised Margaret Thatcher for effecting “meaningful change” in Britain in an article directly appealing to Conservative voters to switch to Labour.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the Labour leader said Thatcher had “set loose our natural entrepreneurialism” during her time as prime minister.
In the article, Starmer pointed to Labour prime ministers of the past – Tony Blair and Clement Attleee – as well as Thatcher, as examples of how politicians can effect meaningful change.
“The course of shock therapy we gave our party had one purpose: to ensure that we were once again rooted in the priorities, the concerns and the dreams of ordinary British people.
His praise of Thatcher – a divisive figure in British politics – is likely to raise eyebrows on the left of the Labour party.
Elsewhere in the article, Starmer criticised the government’s handling of Brexit, arguing it had wasted economic opportunities made possible by the split from the EU.
The original article contains 432 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
