Posted by 
LONDON – The man hoping to be Britain’s next foreign secretary has described Margaret Thatcher as a “visionary leader for the U.K.”
David Lammy was speaking after his colleague, Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves, gave a keynote speech praising the radical former Conservative prime minister.
Reeves’ words were criticized by the figures on the party’s left, who take a dim view of the Thatcher governments between 1979 and 1990 — the former PM’s legacy continues to divide opinion.
Speaking to POLITICO’s Power Play interview podcast, however, Lammy defended Reeves’s comparison with Margaret Thatcher. “I think it’s very apposite,” he said. “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.”
Lammy added that Reeves was setting out a “vision for growth” ahead of the next general election, expected later this year.
He said he had witnessed considerable unemployment which “affected the community I was growing up in” in Tottenham, north London in the 1980s. But in a sign Labour is targeting former Tory voters, he added: “Margaret Thatcher was a visionary leader for the U.K; no doubt about it — that’s absolutely clear.’
In her speech, Reeves praised Thatcher for delivering “supply-side reforms” and rejecting Britain’s “managed decline.”
The campaign group Momentum and former Labour Leader in Scotland, Richard Leonard, derided her remarks, with Leonard posting on social media: “Thatcher didn’t renew the economy, she broke it.”
David Lammy also discussed the conflict in Gaza, Donald Trump and whether Labour Leader Keir Starmer should return the party whip in the Commons to former shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott after she was suspended over an antisemitism scandal. You can hear the full interview with host Anne McElvoy on Power Play, out Thursday.
