Starmer caught in Thatcher U-turn

Stop the presses: Starmer Chameleon has U-turned once again. In predictable fashion, he last night sought to row back on his praise for Margaret Thatcher less than a week after he hailed her ‘natural entrepreneurialism’ in the Sunday Telegraph. In a speech which justified his critics’ claims that he changes his rhetoric to match his auspices, Starmer told a Scottish Labour gala dinner in Glasgow:

She did terrible things, particularly here in Scotland which everybody in this room, myself included, profoundly disagrees with.

Trying to square this week’s views with last weekend’s column, Starmer pleaded that ‘the point I was trying to make…is that there are some political leaders who have a mission, a plan, that they implement’. A point that fell flat, then, given that prominent Labour figures including arch-Blairite John McTernan felt the need to pen criticisms in response.

A model case of politicking gone wrong: in trying to widen his appeal, Starmer has annoyed, er, almost everyone.