Straight after the 1997 election, Tony Blair held meetings with backbenchers at Downing Street. In the course of the exchanges, the incoming prime minister said to me that he hoped any criticism I might have in the future would be put privately. Would it not be useful if those who held the most senior jobs in that government did the same over any differences with the position the party is now taking – all the more so with under 100 days to the election?
David Winnick MP
Labour, Walsall North
• Yet another supposedly left-sympathising commentator airs his disdain of Labour’s electoral chances in good time to be able to say “told you so” on 8 May (Labour under Miliband failing on bigger scale than in 1992, says Hare, 31 January). Do these people not perceive that there is little honour in self-fulfilling prophecies? Rather than hugging to themselves their brilliance at foresight – and Sir David Hare (he accepted the knighthood from the Blairites) loses no time in telling us how on-the-money his plays always are – it would be more useful if all those who want an end to Cameron’s premiership were to keep their self-indulgences to themselves and row in the same direction as those of us who want Miliband to have the opportunity to prove himself.
W Stephen Gilbert
Corsham, Wiltshire
• There have been many complaints about the essentially cosmetic changes to the Guardian’s website (Open door, 2 February). Yet in a change that coincides with the launch of the general election campaign and may have to do with the Guardian’s heart and soul there has been plenty of disturbing silence. I refer to the arrival of one regular Tory guest columnist, Matthew d’Ancona, and one intermittent, Anne McElvoy, both normally to be found rubbishing Labour in the right-of-centre London Evening Standard, but now carrying on their business in the Guardian.
With the entire might and circulation of the national press, aside from the Guardian, Independent and Mirror, already rampantly Conservative, what on Earth explains the decision to import these unlovely, predictable cuckoos into your nest?
Nicholas de Jongh
London
