Keir Starmer's Thatcher Problem
(It's not what you think)
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Keir Starmer has released an op-ed today for the Telegraph in which, in half a line he praises Margaret Thatcher (he also praises Blair and Attlee in the same paragraph) for changing the paradigm in which the UK operated.
Obviously, some have been up in arms about this ‘betrayal of the left’. But as they say the same every time Starmer so much as sneezes, their indignation has long since been drowned out by our indifference.
Twitter (No I don’t call it X and neither does anyone else) might be a bit skittish about it but most people who read the piece will see exactly what is happening here.
Essentially, to win elections - now bear with me here - you have to get more people to vote for you than for the other lot.
Sometimes that means fishing in the other guy’s pool. A Tory to Labour switcher counts double basically as it reduces their tally while increasing yours. It’s why well-meaning attempts to win over third party voters are usually naive in political strategy terms (With the exception of voters in Scotland and Wales).
The front page of the Telegraph is a great way to find those voters. If you read the article, it sets out a narrative of Tory failures that is as deep as it is comprehensive. It could easily win over some wavering traditional Tories who are long past fed up. It could convince a few more to stay at home and sit on their hands safe in the knowledge that Starmer doesn’t scare them.
But to get that onto the front page? That’s where the Thatcher praise comes in. Starmer’s team will have known that in order to lift this from the swirl of political pieces it is not enough simply to write for the Telegraph, they had to put something eye-catching in there that would get people talking. And would give certain readers permission to be open to Starmer’s argument.
That it would also piss off the left might be seen as a bonus by some in Starmer’s team. That’s a shame I think as - frankly - they need to move on from that phase of Starmer’s three-point plan. But I am never going to win that battle sadly. Every LOTO ever will act factionally and interfere where they shouldn’t. That Starmer’s lot are more successful at it than most does not mean that others didn’t try.
So on those grounds, I have no real problem with Stamer invoking Thatcher.
Nor do I have a problem with him saying that he would like to make changes to the country that are on the scale of those that Thatcher made. We need wholesale change - not least to make up for the changes that she wrought and the long-term damage that still echoes today in our lack of housing - particularly social housing; in our filthy rivers and beaches which can be taken back in a straight line to privatisation of water; and in the austerity brought in by her acolytes as a response to an overmighty city that was started with her ‘big bang’ reforms.
Where I think Starmer has a problem is that this is not an article about having a vision as big as Thatcher’s on economic remodelling or Attlee’s on building the welfare state. In fact, the rest of the article is all about Tory failure and Labour Party reinvention. There is not nearly enough forward vision to claim to be a new Thatcher-level figure.
A while back I wrote the generous and ungenerous cases for Starmer’s approach. This is an extract from the generous part. You will see that I too invoke both Thatcher and Attlee:
I return to this because I think in that piece I did make quite a good fist of setting out how Starmer can be a reforming Prime Minister in a time where high spending won’t be possible. But, here’s the thing. I’m a blogger. I am just an observer of politics. I don’t work for Starmer’s office. So why am I better linking that sense of being as reforming as Attlee or Thatcher to a sense of the future a Labour government could potentially offer than they are?
Sure, maybe I do have the shackles off. I don’t have to get anything past Pat McFadden. But nothing I wrote in that piece was about increasing spending. Instead, it’s about changing the machinery of Britain that we know to be broken.
At the start of the year, I offered Labour a simple slogan I still think they should take up as we go into a General Election year: Let’s Fix Britain. They don’t have to use that particular phrase (although my consultancy rates are VERY REASONABLE and I will explain to them exactly why they should) but they do need to give a sense of that renewal. That means not just talking about how bad the Tories have been or how much they have changed Labour but what the country will look like after five years under Starmer.
Why? Labour will almost certainly win the next election. But honestly, they don’t want to win by default. They need to make and keep promises that really will change this country. We need it.
If they don’t - the scariest thing of all is not that Starmer is invoking Thatcher - it’s that there isn’t a positive reason to vote Labour beyond “Not the Tories”. However mad the Tories are now, when they get their act together, Labour must have something to say for themselves.
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What I’ve been up to
Well mostly, I have been performing and recovering from performing Venom.
You can see a video of it here:
And for those interested in hearing more about the process we did a lovely Q & A with Terri Paddock you can see here:
You can also listen to the latest episode of House of Comments where Charlotte and I discuss Rishi losing his marbles and Hancock’s Half Arsed Show.
Let’s Fix Britain.
And let’s be clear about how.
Give people something to Vote for and believe in.
Well written.
Fabulous points, well made.