David Lammy has become the latest senior Labour MP to shower Margaret Thatcher with praise.
The shadow foreign secretary followed in the footsteps of Rachel Reeves, who praised the radical former Tory prime minister during a keynote address yesterday.
Defending the comparison, Lammy told POLITICO’s Power Play interview podcast: “I think it’s very apposite”.
“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.”
She said the country “cannot continue with the short-termist approach that disregards the importance of public investment”, as she vowed to focus on delivering growth if she becomes chancellor.
“That is why our fiscal rules differ from the Government’s,” she said.
“Their borrowing rule, which targets the overall deficit rather than the current deficit, creates a clear incentive to cut investment that will have long-run benefits for short-term gains.
“I reject that approach, and that is why our borrowing rule targets day-to-day spending.
“We will prioritise investment within a framework that would get debt falling as a share of GDP over the medium term.”
Related: Details of James Dyson’s fiery meeting with Jeremy Hunt emerge