Rebecca Long Bailey makes very valid points about the need for an imaginative, transformative agenda (We can take the Labour party back into power. Here’s how, Journal, 30 December). One crucial feature she ignores is that the electoral system is now so distorted and so loaded against Labour ever gaining a majority of seats that the party cannot do it alone.
I was expelled from the Labour party in 2017 for advocating a progressive alliance to secure victory for progressive candidates in seats that Labour cannot win. I stood aside as a Green party parliamentary candidate in 2019 in an attempt to unseat Jeremy Hunt in his South West Surrey constituency. The local Labour party could not support this approach because of its rulebook.
It is only through Labour supporting a one-off progressive alliance underpinned by a commitment to a fair voting system – under which we would have no need for pre-election tactical alliances – that Labour can find its way back to leading a government of the left. Will any of the current candidates for the Labour leadership offer up this realistic route back to power?
Steve Williams
Godalming, Surrey
• Rebecca Long Bailey writes that Labour “must pledge to upend the broken political system that has held back our communities for decades. Wealth and power must be returned to the people of Britain, and their desire for control over their own lives and the future of their communities must be at the heart of our agenda.” Does that mean she is committed to a radical programme of constitutional reform, beginning with PR for elections to Westminster?
As a new Labour party member who has joined only to have a vote in the leadership contest, my choice will be determined by the need for every vote to count, a renewal of our political institutions and for a radical programme of decentralisation of power. Locally is the best way to address the climate crisis, too.
Lyn Dade
London
• Much of Rebecca Long Bailey’s piece appeared to be jargon-filled waffle. While the Tories are (possibly falsely) promising to put extra money into the NHS, to increase police numbers, and to revise the Treasury spending formula in order to spend more outside London, Long Bailey is offering to “upend the broken political system”, to “take the conversation from Westminster to the workplaces and social spaces” and to “revive this progressive patriotism”.
I wonder how many people at the school gates, in A&E departments and supermarket queues will be saying: “Of course! Stuff the NHS, I’ll vote for for a conversation about upending the political system.”
Can other Labour leadership candidates please explain in clear language how they would plan to improve this country for everyone, in order to take the fight to the Tories?
Nadine Grieve
London
• In the various plans put forward by Emily Thornberry and Rebecca Long Bailey, there is very little that amounts to a recognition of those underlying factors which generated a loss of Labour votes. The cliche of rebuilding communities and trust demands a recognition of issues such as the social fracture created by an emphasis on higher education at the expense of further and vocational education, the loss of “good” jobs and the refusal to address the absence of public value for essential forms of employment such as that of care. Slogans such as “all jobs should be good jobs” might be just one of the policies that might be more relevant to millions of people than pious remarks about trust and engagement.
Mary Evans
Patrixbourne, Kent
• I felt dismayed as I read Rebecca Long Bailey’s prospectus to return Labour to power. Seven paragraphs of dark imagery (“austerity”, “nightmare”, “broken system”, “plunging living standards”) offer scant hope of a Labour revival. Candidates for the leadership take note: scolding the Tories for their past failings is not enough. We need a spirited vision of a competent and kind Labour government.
Declan Cadogan
Bristol
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