Tag: United Kingdom

A Conservative MP has suggested introducing Nigel Farage to the House of Lords.

Jonathan Gullis, the MP for Stoke-on-Trent North and member of the New Conservatives, told GB News that the former UKIP leader would be an “asset across the Blue and the Red Wall”. 

“I’d love to see it, personally”, Gullis said when the prospect of Farage joining the Conservative Party was raised. 

He added: “I think Nigel has a lot to offer”.  

“Number one: he is a big voice on the key issues like immigration that we know are a huge number one, if not number two issue for Conservative voters particularly those in 2019 and particularly those in the Red Wall.

“Secondly, I think he is actually an asset across the Blue and the Red Wall. He’s able to communicate in a way many politicians aren’t able to. [There is] probably no one closer to having the ability other than Boris Johnson to be able to get a message across clearly and concisely. 

“I really do hope that he comes forward and he joins — and I’d be very happy to welcome him.”

He added: “We do need to actually deliver on the tens of thousands and maybe, maybe just maybe, the Conservatives could put Nigel Farage in the House of Lords.

“I think he would take no nonsense; he would take no prisoners. He would call out the civil service for what they are at times, which are blockers to actual government policy and make sure that we deliver on the priorities of the British public.”

In his reshuffle last month, Rishi Sunak elevated David Cameron to the House of Lords, enabling the ex-prime minister to become foreign secretary. 

Why David Cameron is back

However, Nigel Farage is a known opponent of the UK’s unelected upper chamber. 

He recently told the I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! camp: “I went to the House of Lords about two months ago, a guy I served with in the late 90s and early 00s in Brussels invited me to lunch. I said, ‘What’s it like here?’ He said, ‘It’s the best retirement home in the country.”

“He said, ‘I get a taxi in every morning, I do a little paperwork, sign in for the money, go for lunch in the subsidised dining room’ and it’s old fashioned English food, it’s roast, it’s really cheap. They go into the House of Lords at 2.30pm for the opening of debates or whatever it is and then p*** off home, that’s it done!”

He added: ““It’s a throwback that needs modernising. It’s been stuffed full of people who have given parties money. Pretty corrupt stuff really. But for those that are in there, it’s a fantastic life.”

Earlier this week, the prime minister appeared to leave the door open for the former Brexit Party leader to make a return to the Conservative Party. 

He refused to rule out the prospect, saying: “Our party has always been a broad church.”

He added: “My focus is consistently on delivering on the things that matter to people”.

A survey conducted by the Conservative Home website early last month showed 72.27 per cent of Conservative members asked say Farage should be admitted to the Conservative Party, should he seek membership. 

23.53 per cent said he should not be admitted if he sought membership, while 4. 2 per cent said they “don’t know”.

70 per cent of Conservative members believe Nigel Farage should be allowed to join party, survey finds

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Change is coming to Westminster, no matter the outcome of the next election. 

Whether it’s a landslide Labour victory or a shock Sunak comeback, a new crop of aspirant MPs will be marching to Westminster in 2024/2025 as SW1’s retirees — feeling fatalistic, having served their time, or simply been thwarted by the Boundary Commission — exit stage left. 

So far, 105 of 650 MPs have plans to retire from frontline politics, either voluntarily or at their party’s direction. But given the length of the current parliament, this level is expected to rise further in the coming months.

The current record for MP turnover between parliaments was set after the 1945 election, as some 324 of the UK’s then 640 MPs entered the House of Commons for the first time. However, if Labour emerges in 2024 or early 2025 with a majority resembling anything like the current polls, this 1945 touchstone could be under threat.

So, who are the individuals set to receive a personal windfall from the UK’s changing political tides?

Using data collated by the political mapping and visualisation platform, Polimapper, politics.co.uk has listed some of the most eye-catching individuals vying to participate in Britain’s next parliament.

The athletes

Acting on behalf of some 75,000 electors will be of little concern for some wannabe MPs, those who already have a track record of representation at the highest level.

Most well-known of this cohort, of course, is James Cracknell (Conservative, Colchester), whose candidature is bolstered by his two Olympic rowing gold medals.

But he is far from alone. Also making up the “Class of 2024’s” jock cohort is Aisha Cuthbert (Conservative, Sittingbourne and Sheppey), who represented Team GB at the 2017 world synchronised swimming championships. Toeing the line in Westminster will come naturally to Cuthbert, one imagines.

Bringing a whole new meaning to the notion of parachuting into a safe seat, David Reed (Conservative, Exmouth), a former Royal Marine Commando, is seeking to impress the electorate with stories of his days representing Team GB in the sport of Parachute Display.

But it’s not just Conservative wannabe MPs who have a sporting pedigree, Henry Tufnell (Labour, Mid and South Pembrokeshire) once competed professionally in middle-distance 800 metres and 1,500 metres races, bolstered from his training regime high in the Kenyan mountains.

Tara Copeland (Lib Dem, Leyton and Wanstead) sports the captain’s armband for Leyton Orient F.C. At the last election, the Liberal Democrat Party won only enough seats to field a full football team, with no subs. Copeland will need to rely on a far better performance if her hopes of a high-profile transfer to SW1 are to be realised.

New report confirms fears political parties are embracing ‘localism’ when selecting future MPs

The action adventurers

Stamina and endurance are virtues in Westminster — whether you’re a rookie MP, forced to wait for much of a day’s sitting for just a few minutes of speaking time in a debate; a junior minister readying to deliver a pre-prepared response in Westminster Hall; or the prime minister, forced to answer questions for hours at the despatch box after delivering a significant statement.

Fortunately, for some aspirant MPs, stamina and endurance come in abundance.

Take Roz Savage for instance (Lib Dem, South Cotswolds) who has rowed solo across each of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans — picking up four Guinness World Records in the process.

The journey from SW1 to his constituency on a Thursday afternoon will also be little concern for Andy MacNae (Labour, Rossendale and Darwen), a former professional mountaineer, who has led 15 expeditions in the Greater Ranges. He also serves as Chief Executive of Venture Xtreme, a company that plans adventures to extreme destinations. Westminster is MacNae’s next target, it seems.

Doing battle for Plymouth Moor View — where incumbent Johnny Mercer, the combative Veterans Minister, resides — is Fred Thomas (Labour), an expert in arctic warfare and the former Royal Marines light heavyweight boxing champion.

Alongside Thomas, a whole host of new combatants may soon be strutting around. Hoping to split their time between a stuffy Westminster office and the dojo hall are kickboxing fan Naushabah Khan (Labour, Gillingham and Rainham) — and fellow martial artists Warinder Juss (Labour, Wolverhampton West), who partakes when not playing his tabla (a set of double drums); Will Stone (Labour, Swindon North), a self-employed Brazilian Jiu Jitsu expert and active competitor; as well as one-time Brexit Party candidate, Craig Smith (Conservative, North West Leicestershire), the principal coach at the Stealth Black Belt martial arts academy in Coalville.

And for their battle planning, parliament’s incoming action adventurer cohort could turn to Dr Mike Martin (Lib Dem, Tunbridge Wells), a former army officer turned author, whose works on psychology and conflict include the account Why We Fight, published in 2018.

The academics

Bolstering all the brawn above is this next cohort — the intellectually self-confident whose academic pathway, they hope, will devastate and woe their respective electorates in equal measure.

In total, of the 550 candidates selected to date, circa 6 per cent have a PhD, well in excess of the 1 per cent said to be found in the general population as a whole. One who hopes his post-doctoral pathway culminates in a parliamentary seat is Dr Adam Thompson (Labour, Erewash), the Associate Editor of the Journal of Precision Engineering.

Luke Gardiner PhD (Conservative, Mid Derbyshire), another intent on appending a further abbreviation to his official title, completed his doctoral thesis, The Truth is Bitter, on the social and intellectual history of the Christian Roman Empire. His knowledge of how ideas can drive history could well be appreciated in any future Conservative leadership contest.

Politics isn’t rocket science — or is it? That’s a question Dr Ian Sollom (Lib Dem, St Neots and Mid Cambridge), who has a Cambridge PhD in cosmology (The Bayesian Analysis of the Cosmic Microwave Background Beyond the Concordance Model, for those seeking some bedtime reading) might be able to answer in time.

It will be no surprise that one-fifth of the country’s candidates so far selected in prime seats will have attended either Oxford or Cambridge. But 10, mainly Labour candidates, can also boast an education from one of the United States of America’s most prestigious universities — that is Harvard, Yale, or Stamford. These include: Tom Collins (Labour, Worcester), Kanishka Narayan (Labour, Vale of Glamorgan), Olly Glover (Liberal, Didoct and Wantage), Sarah Sackman (Labour, Finchley and Golders Green), Chris Murray (Labour, Edinburgh East), Hamish Falconer (Labour, Peterborough), Tom Hayes (Labour, Bournemouth East),  Chesca Walton (Green Party, Hackney South and Shoreditch), and Chris Coghlan (Lib Dem, Dorking and Horley).

It’s not all high-octane…

There are other pathways to parliament that aren’t academic, sporting, or action-orientated, of course.

Evoking anything but the warrior image, one assumes Eleanor Stringer (Labour, Wimbledon) is in full campaign mode when she describes her younger years as spent “looking for Wombles on the common”.

Blazing a trail for the gift shop workers of the UK is Kate Smith (Lib Dem, Amber Valley), who mans the till at the National Tramway Museum in Matlock. Equally charming is the day job of Robert Reiss’ (Lib Dem, Penistone and Stocksbridge), who has spent the last eight years running a community café at Sheffield Cathedral.

Todd Ferguson (Conservative, North Ayrshire and Arran) and Frank McNally (Labour, Coatbridge and Bellshill) may well regret they weren’t included in our sportsperson section; they enjoy a game of bowls at the Dalry and Wrangholm Hall clubs respectively.

And Kathleen Robertson (Conservative, Moray) and Lucie Beattie (SNP, Caithness Sutherland and Easter Ross) will be able to compare their days as leading lights in their respective pipe bands of Forres and District and Ullapool and District.

For those new political faces looking for ideas on how to spend the long summer recess, on hand to provide travel advice could well be Liz Jarvis (Lib Dem, Eastleigh), who is the former long-standing Editor of Cruise International Magazine.

Progress on diversity set to stall in next parliament, ‘Class of 24’ study finds

The high achievers

Feeling ready to answer the call of history is a select group we are calling the “high achievers”, those who — having excelled and been decorated in their current industry — are now looking to find a fresh challenge in the Westminster bubble.

Take Dr Alison Gardner (Labour, Stoke on Trent South), who is a senior scientific advisor at NICE and an expert in Artificial Intelligence and data ethics. She was only recently named in Computer Weekly’s list of the Top Most Influential Women in Tech.

Josh Barbarinde (Lib Dem, Eastbourne) is an award-winning social entrepreneur who was decorated with an OBE from the Queen at the age of 26. It makes him one of the youngest recipients in history. That was before he became a fellow of the US State Department’s Young Transatlantic Innovation Leaders Initiative.

Emanating from the corporate world we have Pauline Jorgensen (Conservative, Early and Woodley), the one-time Head of People Services and Business Efficiency at British Airways; and Charlotte Cane (Lib Dem, Ely and East Cambridgeshire), the former Finance Director of the Forestry Commission.

From the world of medicine we have Zubir Ahmed (Labour, Glasgow South), a consultant surgeon who specialises in vascular and transplant surgery, and who only recently acquired an MBA; and Simon Opher (Labour, Stroud), a local GP who has been awarded an MBE for his pioneering of social prescribing.

Dr Jeevun Sandher (Labour, Loughborough) will be no stranger to decision-making at the very highest level — having once served as an economic advisor to the Ministry of Finance in Somaliland, co-writing the Somaliland National Development Plan no less.

The showpeople

You may recognise some of the next selection of aspirant MPs.

One Alex Clarkson (Conservative, Stevenage) is no stranger to the spotlight. His credits — beyond his time on Hertsmere Borough Council — extend to soaps Eastenders and Hollyoaks, as well as to the classic children’s series Postman Pat. In the latter, he played Ted Glen and Arthur Selby, a policeman. Might a position in the Home Office await?

Clarkson’s fellow thespian Ashley Gunstock (Green, Leyton and Wanstead) played the role of Robin Frank in The Bill from 1984-1989.

Following in the footsteps of our current energy secretary Claire Coutinho — who once appeared as a contestant on the TV Cooking Show “The Taste” — Toni Guigliano (SNP, Falkirk) has reality TV pedigree as a former contestant on the Channel 4 show, Come Dine with Me. For those who missed the episode, Toni complained that he was depicted on the show as being “a food snob”.

If she can row past Cracknell, then taking things rather more seriously will be Pam Cox (Labour, Colchester), an Essex University academic and presenter of the BBC 2 series, Servants: The True History of Life Below Stairs.

Does MP4 — a rock band comprised of present and former parliamentarians — need a new member? Well, meet John Slinger (Labour, Rugby), who has written songs and played guitar in two separate rock bands. You may have heard his music being played on Radio 1 or seen the man himself when he supported Toploader and Muse at the Gloucester Guildhall Arts Centre. That said, an unlikely victor in Martin Dimery (Green, Glastonbury and Somerton) could also make a worthy addition to MP4’s line-up, having written an autobiographical account of his life on the road with a Beatles tribute act entitled “Being John Lennon”.

And brace for barnstorming maiden speeches from Katie Lam (Conservative, Weald of Kent), who is the award-winning lyricist behind Broadway and West End shows; and Alison Hume (Labour, Scarborough), whose work on Summerhill won her the Royal Television Society’s 2008 writer of the year award.

The ‘Nepo babies’

Political anoraks will also be pleased to hear that the Westminster tradition of keeping things in the family is also holding strong.

First, there is Hamish Falconer (Labour, Peterborough), taking after his old man, Lord Falconer, the former long-standing New Labour cabinet minister and onetime flatmate of Tony Blair.

Up next is Chris Murray (Labour, Edinburgh East and Musselburgh), son of former shadow Scottish secretary Margaret Curran.  

Then there’s Aphra Brandreth (Conservative, Chester South and Eddisbury), daughter of the former Chester MP and royal biographer, Gyles Brandreth.

Keeping it around the dinner table you have Joe Dancy (Labour, Stockton North), partner of the current shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, and Jo White (Labour, Bassetlaw) partner of the former Bassetlaw MP, Lord Mann of Holbeck.

For those studying the psychodynamics of sibling rivalry, we have Greg Stafford (Conservative, Farnham and Bordon) — who could easily arrive at Westminster with his belongings on the day that his brother Alexander Stafford (the current MP for Rother Valley) leaves with his.

Arguably, the aspirant with the biggest boots to fill is Joani Reid (Labour, East Kilbride and Strathaven). She is the granddaughter of the Upper Clyde trade unionist, Jimmi Reid, a political figure whose 1972 “rat race speech” was once reprinted in full in the New York Times, with the newspaper declaring it as the best speech since president Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. No pressure there then.

Oh, and while Roberto Weeden-Sanz (Conservative, Scarborough) may look like a body double for Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau (judge for yourself in this 2018 Sun article), be aware that there is absolutely no familial connection.

And for the even more peculiar

Will he enter parliament with a bang or prove a mere flash in the pan? Mark Wooding (Lib Dem, Central Devon) is looking to bring to public life his experience as the chief executive of the World Fireworks Championships.

Or perhaps it will be slow and steady that wins the race: Stephan Aquarone (Lib Dem, Norfolk North) once produced a feature-length romantic comedy called Tortoise in Love.

And looking to seize grab the reins of power are those with their own special talents. Glen Reynolds (SNP, West Aberdeenshire), is the owner of Open Minds Scottish Mobile Hypnotherapy. While Kristy Adams (Conservative, Mid Sussex) was recorded in 2010 as telling a church in Bedford how she healed a deaf man by placing her hands over his ears, according to the Daily Mirror.

Another interesting addition to our elected representatives could be Simon Hobson (Lib Dem, Torridge and Tavistock), who offers himself up on the back of his experience working in Columbia as the Chief Operating Officer for Kunna Cannabis company — a medicinal cannabis business.

If Westminster’s chess champion sisters (the Reeves, and the Eagles) fancy branching out into the world of board games, they could soon finally meet their match in Johnny Luk (Conservative, Milton Keynes). On top of winning an indoor world rowing silver medal (not quite in the Cracknell class), the eight-year-old Luk was once a winner of the junior regional checkers championships in the Netherlands.

From William Bracken, politics.co.uk political correspondent:

So what does it all mean?

And if this has got your head spinning, decamp by asking what it is about politics that attracts such a range of eclectic characters to turn their hand to this pursuit.

Moreover, with 200 or more new MPs being a very realistic possibility within the next year or so, consider this. If you picked a cross-section of 200 random British passport holders waiting at the departure gates of Manchester Airport or the Port of Dover, what are the chances that you might find even a handful with the backgrounds of those parliamentary candidates listed above?

As the ordinary elect the extraordinary, perhaps it is the very notion of a representative parliament that is having the last laugh.

With additional reporting from William Bracken.

Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Twitter here.

Politics.co.uk is the UK’s leading digital-only political website, providing comprehensive coverage of UK politics. Subscribe to our daily newsletter here.

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In 2021 I was the victim of a crime that resulted in me being diagnosed with PTSD. I manage my condition – which I can expect to live with perhaps indefinitely – with venlafaxine, an antidepressant, benzodiazepines for my sleep, and regular therapy. 

These drugs, at the moment, are about the best that the NHS can offer to people with PTSD. It is a similar picture for many, many other people in Britain who live with other mental health conditions – severe depression, addictions, eating disorders, and many others. 

The odd thing is that there is an effective treatment for all of the conditions I have listed. This is psilocybin – the active compound found in magic mushrooms. It is a controlled drug, so cannot be prescribed outside clinical trials. This is why I am calling for the government to review the evidence for its Schedule 1 status. 

For hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, this is urgent. 

Over the last 30 years, few new treatments for mental health conditions have emerged. Mental health is the poor relative compared with other areas of medicine – think of the advances that are thankfully being made in cancer treatment, gene therapy, AI, or robotic arms already carrying out surgery. 

Yet in mental health, very often the default answer remains antidepressants. For severe depression, you may be offered ECT (electric shocks). 

The government places tight controls on research into controlled drugs. A long list of psychoactive drugs – precisely the chemical compounds you want to study if you are trying to develop a new mental health medicine – are currently designated ‘Schedule 1’ drugs by the Home Office. Schedule 1 status, in essence, labels them as having no potential for medical use. 

It also makes them incredibly difficult and expensive to study. 

I have just been invited to become co-chair of the Centre for Evidence Based Drug Policy, a think tank that assesses which drug policies actually work. It feels strange that such an obvious proposition needs a think tank to promote it – surely everyone agrees that we should do what works? Sadly, no. Right now, we don’t. 

In other parts of the world, such as in Australia, and parts of Canada and the United States, politicians have cottoned onto this and people are now getting access to these treatments. In Australia, since July this year, psilocybin and MDMA have been legally prescribable for depression and PTSD respectively. 

Psilocybin shows particularly significant potential as a treatment for severe depression, for people who have not responded to currently available treatment options. It is currently restricted under Schedule 1 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. This means it cannot lawfully be prescribed outside of a clinical trial. You will not be surprised to read that getting a Home Office licence is an exceptionally expensive and time-consuming process. In practice, as a result, many UK researchers who wish to study the therapeutic effects of psilocybin are effectively unable to do so. 

Change is sorely needed. There are signs that the Drug Minister, Chris Philp MP, recognises this. In October he wrote to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) asking them to advise the government on reducing these financial and administrative barriers to research into Schedule 1 drugs. 

Research is important – I applaud the Minister (a Conservative!) for recognising this. But we need to go much further and urgently work out how to facilitate patient access to treatments like psilocybin. Taking away barriers to research is a bit like opening the stable doors once the horse has bolted – in Australia, doctors have already started prescribing psilocybin to their patients. 

This medicine could already be transforming and saving lives in Britain. Suicide is a leading cause of death for young adults in the UK. Why should they not be able to access a potentially life-saving medicine that their Australian counterparts can? 

Removing barriers to research, as recommended in the ACMD’s report, is welcome, but does not change this basic fact. Rescheduling would not only reduce barriers to research but also allow psychiatrists the ability to prescribe it where appropriate. For many, access to psilocybin-assisted therapy could offer a light at the end of a very dark tunnel, and enable thousands of people to live fuller, happier, better lives. 

To look at the evidence and do nothing – our current approach – feels like institutional cruelty. 

Without rescheduling and allowing patient access, we risk not only being left behind in this field of mental health research, but—far worse—we fail the many, many people who, like me, currently just do not have good treatment options available to us. 

How strange that this is something the government could change, almost overnight, without spending a penny of taxpayer’s money. All the government would need to do would be to be brave enough to ask their advisers to give them the evidence. 

Asking the ACMD for the evidence on rescheduling psilocybin is the first step on that road. 

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Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has this morning insisted he is “confident” that flights will be taking off to Rwanda before the next election. 

It comes after home secretary James Cleverly has arrived in Rwanda to sign a new treaty with the country. He will meet his counterpart, Vincent Biruta, to sign the treaty and discuss key next steps, the Home Office has said.

The government is attempting to make its flagship plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda legally sound in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling against the policy.

Last month, the court’s five judges unanimously backed the judgement delivered by the Court of Appeal which declared the policy was unlawful because of the risk that asylum seekers sent to Rwanda would be returned to their own country and face persecution in breach of their human rights.

Emergency domestic legislation is also planned, which will declare that Rwanda is a safe country for asylum seekers arriving in the UK to be sent there to have their claims processed. 

Ahead of his arrival in Kigali, Cleverly said: “We are clear that Rwanda is a safe country, and we are working at pace to move forward with this partnership to stop the boats and save lives.”

Although the Supreme Court judged Rwanda unsafe, the home secretary said the court had also recognised “that changes may be delivered in future to address the conclusions they reached”.

He added: “Rwanda cares deeply about the rights of refugees, and I look forward to meeting with counterparts to sign this agreement and further discuss how we work together tackle the global challenge of illegal migration.”

Asked this morning whether he was “confident that planes will take off to Rwanda before the next election?”, immigration minister Robert Jenrick told Sky News:

“I am — but we will need to do a few things to achieve that. The treaty that the home secretary is going to sign later today will create a fundamentally different and better arrangement with the government of Rwanda that answers the concerns of the Supreme Court”

“And then we’re going to bring forward a piece of emergency legislation that will embed that in British UK law and go further to close some of the loopholes that bring spurious claims and prevent migrants being put on those planes.

“Together, I think this will enable us to get that plan running. This is a plan that is absolutely critical to getting numbers down.”

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Keir Starmer will accept that the decisions taken in the recent autumn statement will “constrain” what a government can do in a speech later today. 

In an address to the Resolution Foundation, his first since the autumn statement, the Labour leader will insist his party will not “turn on the spending taps” in government.

He will reflect on the future of public sector spending and how that has changed since last month’s autumn statement. 

In his address to the commons last month, chancellor Jeremy Hunt put the UK on course for another round of sweeping public sector cuts after the election to pay for, in part, £20 billion worth of tax cuts. The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projected unprotected departments will see their budgets fall by 4.1 per cent every year over the next parliament

Starmer will say: “Anyone who expects an incoming Labour government to quickly turn on the spending taps is going to be disappointed.

“It’s already clear that the decisions the government are taking, not to mention their record over the past 13 years, will constrain what a future Labour government can do.”

He will add: “This parliament is on track to be the first in modern history where living standards in this country have actually contracted. Household income growth is down by 3.1 per cent and Britain is worse off.

“This isn’t living standards rising too slowly or unequal concentrations of wealth and opportunity. This is Britain going backwards. This is worse than the 1970s, worse than the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s, and worse even than the great crash of 2008.”

The Labour leader will prioritise growth in his speech today with a series of policies including planning reform, competitive business taxes and stronger labour protections.

He will say: “The defining purpose of the next Labour government, the mission that stands above all others, will be raising Britain’s productivity growth.”

He will added that growth “is a goal that for my Labour Party is now an obsession. That’s a big change for us. Having wealth creation as our number one priority, that’s not always been the Labour Party’s comfort zone.”

The speech comes after Keir Starmer appeared to praise former Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher in an op-ed for the Telegraph over the weekend. 

In the piece, he said: “Every moment of meaningful change in modern British politics begins with the realisation that politics must act in service of the British people, rather than dictating to them. Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism.”

It prompted Humza Yousaf, the Scottish first minister who is seeking to thwart a Labour revival north of the border, described Starmer’s comments as “an insult” to Scotland.

“What Thatcher did to mining and industrial communities was not ‘entrepreneurialism’, it was vandalism”, he wrote on X, adding communities across the UK “still bear the scars of her disastrous policies”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4 on Sunday, Starmer defended the article, saying: “The point I’m making in the article really is that you can distinguish political leaders, certainly in the post-war period, into those that had a plan and those that drifted essentially.”

Thatcher “did have a plan for entrepreneurialism, had a mission”, he said “It doesn’t mean I agree with what she did but I don’t think anybody could suggest that she didn’t have a driving sense of purpose.

“The characteristic of an incoming Labour government — if we’re privileged enough to come in to serve — will be this sense of mission, this sense of having a plan that we’re operating to, a driving sense of purpose.”

Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, told Sky News this morning: “I recognise [Thatcher] won three times.

“I would hope if we were going to win elections, we would make change with the same determination but not in the same direction.”

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