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.
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.