Why Rachel Reeves is channelling her inner Maggie Thatcher to win votes

As the shadow chancellor delivers a big speech claiming Thatcher’s mantle, John Rentoul reveals why she and Keir Starmer are so obsessed with the Iron Lady

Rachel Reeves’s bid to be the new Iron Lady is balanced by her simultaneous attempt to be the new Gordon Brown (PA Wire)

Rachel Reeves avoided anything as crude as making a direct comparison, but the advance publicity for her Mais lecture (the landmark political speech for chancellors) included a passage that began with the words, “As we did at the end of the 1970s, we stand at an inflection point…”

In other words, I am the new Iron Lady and I will save the failing British economy from the malaise of the past decade or more. She rejects “managed decline” and pledges to “fashion a new economic settlement” to restore growth and prosperity.

The Conservative press could read the code. She was rewarded with the front-page lead story in The Daily Telegraph this morning: “Reeves: Britain faces 1979 moment.” And a prominent story in The Times: “Rachel Reeves channels Margaret Thatcher in City of London speech.”