To feel completely disillusioned with the Labour Party?

But it’s not praise and he’s clarified that he doesn’t think what she did was right/good. It’s just a statement of her ‘mission’.

This. Keir Starmer will have said these things to try and scoop up Tory voters who either swap between parties, or who are very much centrist.

I hate that's how things are with our political system, but not voting Labour if you were otherwise going to is only playing into Tory hands.

A significant part of why FPTP endures and produces such boring and rubbish outcomes is that everyone thinks everyone else will vote Tory or Labour. What if suddenly people woke up and only voted green, Lib Dem or ukip?

Never just read the headlines. Always read the source before making up your mind.

Vote. Just get the bloody tories out.

Where I live the current choice is the current MP who lives 200 miles away (not london) or a guy who was previously my councillor and when I complained about cars doing 60 in a 30 zone his response was yes they do it where I live too 🙄

Voting for anyone else will mean another 5 years of posturing by a guy who's currently jumping on the bandwagon of mental health without associating the rise in mental health is directly related to his government's policies.

He said Thatcher had "a sense of mission"

Which she did.
To make Britain worse in many ways but can't deny she had a clear sense of what she wanted and did it. He was contrasting that with the current government who don't appear to have any overarching mission except making money for their mates and getting jobs on GB News.

If you want the Tories to stay in power, then fine - just say that. Don't pretend it's because you are too disillusioned with Labour. They've not been in government for nearly two decades - if you are more disillusioned with Labour than the Tories right now, that is insane.

Curious to know more about what Adolf Hitler's positives were, exactly.

I think he was very unwise to mention Thatcher, because you could have predicted exactly what would happen when he did - i.e. everyone jumps to the conclusion that he is a supporter of her.

Whereas, in fact:

Starmer told BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House on Sunday: “Thatcher did have a plan for entrepreneurialism, [she] had a mission. 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.”

In a piece for the Sunday Telegraph, 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.”

Because any form of praise of certain people is unacceptable. Thatcher is seen as so inherently bad that there is nothing praiseworthy about her. It's the same as when Bernie Ecclestone got into hot water over his comments on Hitler (along the lines of "he was a person who was able to get things done"). The individual is so loathed it's unacceptable to highlight any positives.

Reality is the problem, though.

Look at the last 45 years. Only one incarnation of the Labour Party has won an election, and it was centrist relative to the roots of the party. Every attempt to get back to the roots has resulted in epic failure - Corbyn even lost the biggest open-goal election against a Conservative party in complete disarray with the weakest PM in the last half-century. Yes, he made a few gains the first time round but not enough to win, and then lost double that number in the next election.

Labour in the form of its further-left roots will never win an election in this country. That's simple fact. Also, neither will any other left-leaning party - they're all rounding errors.

The only remaining question is whether you want the Conservatives in power for another five years or not. If you do, vote with your ideology or conscience. If you don't, voting tactically to put Labour in power is the only rational choice.

This. You've fallen for the distortion of KS' words by other media outlets who just want to manufacture outrage.

This. Go back to the Telegraph article and read what he said. It's quite different from the spin being put on it by the BBC, the rw media and even the lw media.

Who the fuck believes a word any of our hallowed arbiters of truth prints ?

Right now the burning issue is to dump the Tories. We can deal with what follows afterwards.

If people don't want to grow the fuck up and keep on insisting on a princess perfect political party before they will vote then we are all fucked.

Starmer's article in the DT was ill-advised, and that concerns me. I would like someone in power who has the brains to realise how this one sentence would be taken out of context by the media and inflated. It does not show any wisdom or foresight.
However the absolute priority at the moment is to get this dishonest unprincipled shower out of government, so if voting for Labour means the local Tory candidate gets the boot, then so be it.

Because the election campaign has already started, and the Conservatives have decided the best way to win is to exploit the left's natural tendency to eat themselves.

If the Conservatives win, then it's going to be exclusively because left-voting folk have decided they hate the leader of the only left-leaning party that could possibly govern.

In a FPTP system, especially one which is gerrymandered to favour the right, voting according to strict ideology is no different to giving half your vote to the Conservatives.

I feel the same and so millions of others. My worry is that voting for an alternative party could heavily dilute the vote against the Tory monsters.
i can only see greens as a viable party for me but even then I’m not 100% about all their policies so it feels like a half hearted defeatist vote.
im so so sad about what’s happened to our labour.

Not sure that I am too bothered about the Thatcher thing but on voting in general I am with you 100%. I'll only vote for a party on the grounds that I actually want them running the country. Being slightly less bad than the alternative isn't good enough. If you keep voting for crap parties they don't have any incentive to be anything better than slightly less crap than the opposition.

All he said was Margaret Thatcher sought to drag Britain out of its stupor by setting loose our natural entrepreneurialism.. It’s a straightforward statement of fact, how on earth has that got twisted into praise?

Exactly @ntmdino
It keeps being reported as 'praise'. All he said was that she changed Britain, which she did. He's also clarified he wasn't suggesting the way she did it was good. I've no idea what people are getting so het up about.

This. Go back to the Telegraph article and read what he said. It's quite different from the spin being put on it by the BBC, the rw media and even the lw media.

Would you be honestly just as happy to have one in power as the other?

And that's the reason you should vote for him. The only vote that makes any sense is for the person who can get/keep a Tory out in your constituency. Tories back in is the worst possible outcome. Anything else will be better. Why wouldn't you vote for better?

I spoiled my ballot paper a few years ago in protest because none of the parties available valued women's rights or could even say what a woman was. I could not morally use my vote to support vulnerable children being sterilised and women being raped in prison.

Fortunately the SDP then fielded a candidate in my area. Like you I don't want to vote Tory but I can't support destroying children.

What, exactly, is it about his comments on Thatcher don't you like?

Because...what he actually said is not the same as what's been put out in headlines.

Yes it’s tricky, sometimes you just have to tactically vote.