Rachel Reeves gave a major policy speech on 19th March in which see argued a Labour Government would promote a decade of renewal as Thatcher did after 1979. Those of who were there at the time don’t recall it quite like that. Thatcher’s renewal was one which benefited the few not the many. Reeves argued rather for an ‘inclusive’ version where growth would benefit the many. That is clearly a desirable objective but Thatcherism is really not the starting point to do it.
Its the same error Blair made after 1997
In an interview with the Financial Times on 22nd December 2023 he touched briefly on British politics past and present. He argued that New Labour ‘did lots of things in the public realm and implemented social change’. This or should not be in doubt. Some positive things were done. The point is that with massive majorities more could have been done and that some of the things that were done- PFI and wars- did not help at all.
Blair also noted that New Labour kept to the ‘basic emphasis of enterprise that Thatcher introduced’.
He went on to support Starmer’s statement that Thatcher had a ‘sense of mission’
Blair and Starmer still do not realise or fully understand what the problem with this is. The late Stuart Hall analysed Thatcher’s Great Moving Right Show- breaking unions, privatisation, victimisation of minorities. It was unfortunately a successful political project.
Blair and New Labour and now Reeves understand that they needed and need a similar project. David Lammy in describing Thatcher as a visionary is on the same page
The issue as Hall later underlined was that they did not fully grasp that their project had to be on the left not just a copy of Thatchers. And they still don’t really get it. Perhaps they don’t actually want to.
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