Margaret Thatcher Did Terrible Things, Insists Keir Starmer after Backlash to Tribute

THE TELEGRAPH: Labour leader caused a stir by commending the former PM for enacting ‘meaningful change’

Sir Keir says he was making the point that Thatcher was a leader with a 'driving sense of purpose', rather than expressing support for her policies | CREDIT: ROGER HARRIS/AFP via Getty Images
Sir Keir Starmer has insisted he is not a fan of Margaret Thatcher as he faced a backlash from his own MPs for praising the Iron Lady.

The Labour leader claimed the former prime minister did “terrible things” which he “profoundly disagrees with” as he sought to placate backbenchers angered by his tribute to her legacy.

Sir Keir caused a stir by commending Thatcher for enacting “meaningful change” and “setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism” in an article for The Telegraph.

He has since stressed he was making the point that she was a leader with a “driving sense of purpose”, rather than expressing support for her policies.

He went even further at a gala dinner in Scotland on Thursday evening, clarifying he was no champion of her politics. Asked if he was a fan of Thatcher, he said: “No, absolutely not. She did terrible things, particularly here in Scotland which everybody in this room, myself included, profoundly disagrees with.” » | Amy Gibbons, Political Correspondent | Friday, December 8, 2023


Can't these politicians let Margaret Thatcher rest in peace? It's as if they are tied to Mummy's apron strings! Margeret Thatcher was in power 40 years ago! I remember the period very well. Undoubtedly, her politics made life exciting for many, though very hard for many others. Whether you agreed with her politics, or not, nobody can deny her leadership skills and sense of purpose.

However, she governed in very different times from today. The problems she and her government faced and had to try and solve were very different from today's problems. Indeed, one of the major problems we face today is wealth inequality. The gap between the haves and have-nots has never been as big as this since the Gilded Age. It should be noted that it was Thatcherism here in the UK and Reaganomics, its brother in the States, that set this trend in motion. We wouldn't have this HUGE wealth gap today had it not been for Thatcher and Reagan. So the last thing we need now is yet more of the very policies that caused this problem.

Thatcher once said that the wealth gap doesn't matter. As a one-time student of economics, I can assure you that she was absolutely wrong on that. The gap between the rich and the poor does matter if society is to cohere and be harmonious. You only have to ask the French about that! France lost its monarchy because of the displeasure of the people with the then existent wealth gap!

I find it mystifying that Thatcher's spell on this country has still not been broken. That this is so can surely be explained only by our politicians' lack of understanding of the economy and of how economics works.

Thatcherism was all well and good in the 1980s and 90s. But all these decades later, we need another way forward.

Margaret Thatcher: Requiescat in pace. – © Mark Alexander

The Guardian View on Tory Ideology: Thatcherism Isn’t Working – It Never Did

THE GUARDIAN – EDITORIAL: There was no miracle, only a myth manufactured by the Iron Lady herself. It’s time Westminster woke up to that

Margaret Thatcher on the steps of 10 Downing Street, May 1980. Photograph: John Redman/AP
A spectre is haunting British politics. Its outline is instantly recognisable to every Briton of a certain age: hair coiffed into a halo, shoulders firmed up with pads and, jutting out from the left wrist, the inevitable handbag.

More than three decades after she was driven out of No 10, and a decade after her death, Margaret Thatcher still casts a long shadow over the country she once ruled, and her party. Rishi Sunak sat in her old Rover ( and tweeted about it, naturally) and Liz Truss copied her wardrobe. She influenced the Labour party under Tony Blair, though this admiration was first tempered by Labour under Ed Miliband and even more under Jeremy Corbyn. Sir Keir Starmer’s praise for Mrs Thatcher is perhaps more about internal Labour politics than about the Tories’ “leaderene”.

For some, however, she remained the country’s “saviour”. As the UK became the sick man of Europe, along came its first woman prime minister – closing down industries and cutting spending. Supporters acknowledge this hurt, but say it worked. History has not been kind about such judgments. Her emphasis on monetarism proved wrong. She bequeathed a dismal legacy of greed and inequality. » | Editorial | Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Harold Macmillan Giving a Speech on Margaret Thatcher's Privatisation Policies

This is Starmer’s moment. Thatcherism has collapsed, and the Tories are at each other’s throats: This is no passing crisis, it is existential. Look at the polls – people don’t want the Tories or their agenda any more »

'Truss Doesn't Understand What I Wrote about Economics' | Rick Perlstein

When the Times interviewed Liz Truss at the end of last year, she told us she "read anything" by the American historian Rick Perlstein He chronicles the rise of the new US right between 1960 and 1980, in the Nixon and Reagan eras. Perlstein is confused by her endorsement.

I have stated many times already that Liz Truss and her neoliberal, so-called trickle-down economic fantasy is going to be a disaster for this country. I stand by my words. Neoliberal economics, aka Reaganomics, aka Thatcherism is the last thing we need in the present economic circumstances. Furthermore, had such economic theory been truly effective, this country would have growth in the stratosphere by now! Thatcher came to power in 1979. She was ousted in 1990 in an ignominious coup reminiscent of a banana republic.

I was one of Thatcher’s biggest fans back in the day. But economic circumstances were totally different in those years. The UK had also been in the grip of socialism for many years prior to Thatcher’s ‘Revolution’; so, nothing in the coutry worked. Arguably, Thatcherism was the very medicine the country needed at that time.

However, no prime minister since Thatcher, be he/she a Conservative PM or a Labour PM, has ever had the courage to truly abandon Thatcherism. Now, Liz Truss is going to double down on Thatcher’s neoliberal ideas; and arguably in an even more extreme way!

Thatcherite policies are NOT what this country needs at this time. The economic problems which this country is facing and which this country needs to solve now are totally different from those that Thatcher faced. Doubling down on Thatcherism at this time is madness. Moreover, the only thing that can be said about Arthur Laffer’s ‘laffer curve’ is that it is ‘laffable’! Such an absurdidy! – © Mark Alexander

Trickle-down Truss Is Carrying On the dirty Work of Thatcher, Blair and Osborne

THE GUARDIAN: Britain has endured 40 years of decline thanks to this faulty economic theory. Will Keir Starmer finally kill it off?

If Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget survives the storm it triggered, a banker on a million-pound annual salary stands to receive £50,000 of income tax relief – on top of the extra bonuses the bank can throw in, now that the Liz Truss government has removed the cap on them. Meanwhile, a Deliveroo rider gets a pep talk on the emancipatory value of aspiring to be wealthy, presumably as an incentive to pedal harder. This is the gist of the government’s growth strategy or, according to former Brexit minister David Frost, its antidote to stagnation and defeatism.

While it’s tempting to draw the obvious analogy between zombie ideas such as the trickle-down growth effect, and the classic Hollywood horror film Night of the Living Dead, a more appropriate response to the seriousness of the situation is to follow the banker’s extra cash. The government claims the banker will invest it, thus promoting growth. If it were not a blatant lie, it might have passed as a touching example of unfounded faith. But unlike Adam Smith’s bakers, butchers and brewers, who would invest any spare cash into better and more bread, ale and meat, the banker will buy into some fund that will, in turn, purchase shares, derivatives and bonds.

These recipients of the banker’s extra money have a long track record of not investing in actual productive capacity. Why would they, when the masses out there can’t afford to buy new, high-value products? … » | Yanis Varoufakis * | Saturday, October 1, 2022

* Yanis Varoufakis is the leader of MeRA25 in Greece’s parliament, a former finance minister of Greece, and author of Another Now

Liz Truss Is Returning to the Fairytale Rconomics of the 1980s

OPEN DEMOCRACY: Excessive inequality and wealth redistribution to the rich have wrecked the economy. ‘Trussonomics’ won’t help

Liz Truss has made it clear that ‘handouts’ are not her preferred way. | PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo
Our new prime minister has already set out her primary economic principles. Although a £90bn bailout to help households and businesses cope with the energy crisis looks on the cards, Liz Truss has made it clear that “handouts” are not her preferred way.

Truss has little option but to make a bold move to prevent a catastrophic fall in living standards. But she has also publicly rejected the idea of looking at the economy through the “lens of redistribution”. By this, she means she is dropping any idea of tackling inequality. Instead, growth will be given priority “because that benefits everyone”.

Both of these declarations show a complete lack of understanding of recent and past political history.

They are a repeat of the arguments used in the 1970s by the anti-egalitarian school of ‘New Right’ evangelists. One of those evangelists, Keith Joseph, a close adviser to Margaret Thatcher, claimed that ‘true’ Conservatives need “to make the case against egalitarianism… The pursuit of equality has done, and is doing, more harm, stunting the incentives and rewards that are essential to any successful economy.” » | Stewart Lansley | Tuesday, September 6, 2022

Labour Surges as Tory Fears Grow over Truss’s Tax Cut Agenda

THE OBSERVER: Likely PM’s policies will mean ‘big trouble’, say critics, as Starmer’s energy price initiative boosts him in polls

Liz Truss has been criticised by the former Tory chancellor Kenneth Clarke for proposing tax cuts during a time of ‘enormous public debts’. Photograph: Peter Byrne/PA
Senior Tories have warned that their party will suffer dire electoral consequences under a Liz Truss premiership that fails to address the cost of living crisis, as Labour enjoys a poll bounce suggesting Keir Starmer could be on course for No 10.

Amid signs of mounting panic among high-ranking Conservatives about Truss’s economic policies, several former cabinet ministers told the Observer on Saturday the party would suffer devastating losses in blue and red wall seats unless Truss changes tack, if and when she enters No 10.

After Michael Gove described Truss’s plan to focus on cutting taxes as a “holiday from reality” and announced he was supporting Rishi Sunak, the latest Opinium poll for the Observer gives Labour and its leader a double poll boost, days after he backed a complete freeze on energy bills this autumn. Labour now enjoys its biggest Opinium poll lead in months – eight points – while Starmer has surged well ahead of Truss in the past two weeks when voters are asked who would be the best prime minister. » | Toby Helm, Observer political editor “ | Saturday, August 20, 2022

This woman, Liz Truss, is economically illiterate. That we should even be contemplating entrusting her with the keys to Number 10 is a sad indictment of the British political system. For this cipher to wish to pursue Thatcherite policies at this time of national crisis shows me, and should show you, that she has lost the plot! The very last thng this country needs right now is more Thatcherite policies! It is an overdose of Thatcherism that has helped to land us all in this parlous state we now find ourselves in. For God's sake, don't give that woman the keys to Number 10. Doing so will be the path to this country's ruin. It will also help accelrate this country's place on the list of Third World countries. To borrow Thatcher's well-worn turn of phrase: "No! No! No!" Further, to add insult to injury, that voice of hers! Well! It's bad enough to turn the milk sour! – © Mark Alexander

Thatcherism Is an Obsolete Ideology – But It’s the Only One That Sunak and Truss Have

THE GUARDIAN – OPINION: The Tories see fresh thinking as a luxury, so their leaders are sticking with an orthodoxy that’s well past its sell-by date

It’s generally agreed that the last dozen years have been some of the most turbulent in our modern history. So much has changed or been called into question: our climate, the cost of living, the state’s ability to protect us, capitalism’s ability to spread prosperity, the continuation of the United Kingdom, our relationship with Russia and the EU, even our sensethat we can be a functional society. To an extent that was almost inconceivable in 2010, when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition took office, this has become a different country.

Some politicians have tried to adapt. Labour has moved leftwards and then back towards the centre. The Lib Dems have moved rightwards, supporting Tory austerity, and then become more hostile to the Conservatives under Ed Davey. The SNP has become more assertive in its push for independence. Meanwhile some Tories, such as Boris Johnson and Theresa May, have at least talked about governing in new ways, by “levelling up” or helping the “just about managing”.

Yet one group of politicians, who have gradually become the most powerful in the country, and are about to become our rulers, whoever wins the Tory leadership contest, have seemingly not adjusted their thinking at all amid the chaos and flux. As a result, we may face our worst peacetime crisis since the 1930s under a government with a disastrously out-of-date worldview. » | Andy Beckett | Friday, August 19, 2022

The Guardian View on Post-Covid Recovery: Powered by the State Not the Market

‘A Thatcherite approach will not produce a fairer distribution of growth.’ Photograph: Getty
THE GUARDIAN: The Thatcherite wing of the Conservative party desires a restoration of ideas whose time has come and gone

The Conservative party hooked British capitalism to the state’s life support system for the past 18 months. So it takes chutzpah to think, as business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng does, of putting the free market at the heart of a post-Covid recovery. Yet lengthening NHS waiting lists, hiking consumer energy bills and welfare cuts when poverty is rising all betray a mindset that regards the re-legitimation of state intervention as threatening a way of life rather than securing it.

What the Thatcherite wing of the Conservative party desires is a restoration. For them this is an opportunity to go back to 1979 and use tried-and-tested ways to stabilise prices, crush labour and discipline poorer nations. These rightwingers yearn for higher interest rates, to prioritise financial returns on assets and the use of creditor power to squeeze the global south. » | Editorial | Monday, August 9, 2021