Margaret Thatcher was a ‘visionary leader’ says Labour’s David Lammy

Margaret Thatcher was a “visionary leader for the UK”, David Lammy has said.

The shadow foreign secretary said that the former Conservative prime minister set out “a big manifesto for change” and “set about a course that lasted for over two decades”.

He made the comments after Rachel Reeves argued this week that the next government faced challenges like those faced by Baroness Thatcher at the end of the 1970s.

Mr Lammy told the Politico Power Play podcast: “Margaret Thatcher was a visionary leader for the UK; no doubt about it – that’s absolutely clear.”

He risks further inflaming the Labour Left, who criticised the shadow chancellor after her speech to the City of London on Tuesday referencing the ex-prime minister.

Ms Reeves said at the annual Mais Lecture: “When we speak of a decade of national renewal, that is what we mean. As we did at the end of the 1970s, we stand at an inflection point.

“And as in earlier decades, the solution lies in wide-ranging supply-side reform to drive investment, remove the blockages constraining our productive capacity, and fashion a new economic settlement drawing on evolutions in economic thought.”

She went on to reject Thatcherism in her speech by saying that “unlike the 1980s, growth in the years to come must be broad-based, inclusive and resilient”.

None the less, a spokesman for Momentum, the Left-wing campaign group, hit back at her speech, and said: “Thatcher’s government did not bring about ‘national renewal’ but instead misery for millions of working-class people and ballooning inequality.”

Mr Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, defended Ms Reeves’s reference to Mrs Thatcher, saying that it was “apposite”.

In the Politico podcast, out on Thursday, he said: “If you look back to the end of the 1970s. Britain on its knees, sick man of Europe. We weren’t even able to bury our dead and sort out our rubbish.

“I’m afraid we were in a mess. And it did need big economics to get us out of that mess.”

He added: “Now you can take issue with Mrs Thatcher’s prescription, but she had a big manifesto for change and set about a course that lasted for over two decades.”

Asked how he felt about Mrs Reeves’s Thatcher comparison, he said: “I accept that while she comes from a different tradition, of course, Margaret Thatcher was a visionary leader for the UK.”

‘Born-again Thatcherites’

Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader, took aim at Labour in the Commons following Ms Reeves’s speech.

Mr Flynn told Rishi Sunak at Prime Minister’s Questions: “With his backbenchers looking for a unity candidate to replace him, which of the now numerous born-again Thatcherites on the Labour front bench does he believe best fits the bill?”

Mr Sunak replied: “It was surprising to hear all this talk of the 1970s from the shadow chancellor in particular.”

Sir Keir Starmer was attacked by Left-wing MPs in December after he wrote in an article for The Telegraph that Baroness Thatcher had effected “meaningful change” and set loose “our natural entrepreneurialism” while in office.

Later the Labour leader was forced to clarify that he did not “agree with what she did”, though he added “I don’t think anybody could suggest that she didn’t have a driving sense of purpose”.