Any government decision that reduces child poverty is welcome (Rachel Reeves to lift two-child benefit cap in November budget, 30 September). But if Rachel Reeves only partially lifts the two-child cap benefit cap, then what does that tell us about this government?
It tells that, although it acknowledges that the cap is cruel and discriminatory, it is still willing to discriminate against children based on the circumstances of their birth. It tells us that it has accepted George Osborne’s decision that the link in our welfare state between need and provision is no longer worth preserving – a decision that has abject consequences for the most vulnerable in society. And it tells us that when Keir Starmer talks about delivering a “Britain where no child is hungry, where no child is held back by poverty”, those words are hollow.
There can be no half measures when tackling child poverty. If the government has finally agreed that the two-child benefit cap is fundamentally wrong, it must release all children from it immediately, without exception.
Jane Middleton
Bath
• Your editorial (30 September) says “Rachel Reeves is considering a range of options including a taper, so that subsequent children would qualify for benefit payments at a lower rate.” It is typical of this cheeseparing, triangulating government and Reeves’s “Treasury brain” that they think the third or subsequent child can be raised more cheaply than the first two children and that they know better how many children parents should have before they are punished for having them in order to save the government money.
Derrick Cameron
Stoke-on-Trent
• After a period of accommodating to what passes for the policies for Nigel Farage and Reform UK, it’s good to see Keir Starmer come out and clearly oppose them (‘Decency or division’: Britain faces era-defining choice, Keir Starmer warns, 30 September). However, words on a conference platform are only a start. If the drift to the right in British politics is to be halted, Labour will need to end its obsessive factional war with the left and work with forces at the grassroots – in workplaces, pubs and cafes, communities – who are challenging Reform day in and day out.
Keith Flett
Tottenham, London
• Labour’s conference uncharacteristically bristled with flags – “members of the cabinet were up and down like yo-yos with their union jacks,” as John Crace put it (Sketch, 30 September), but it was the absence of another emblem that was most remarkable: not a red rose in sight. What a shame. What irony. The England women’s rugby team have just invested this erstwhile Labour symbol with the kind of unambiguous inclusivity, diversity, sense of purpose and pure joy that both the party and the nation’s flags are struggling to convey.
Paul McGilchrist
Cromer, Norfolk
• Given the new optics at Labour’s conference, here’s a modest proposal for a new anthem (with apologies to the Red Flag): “The people’s flag’s red, white and blue, / We’re patriotic through and through. / We’ll fight Reform with all our might, / But keep new migrants out of sight. / Then build a Britain fit for all, / While keeping debt repayments small. / Though leftists flinch and Tories sneer, / We’ll go on waving flags for Keir.”
Dr Anthony Isaacs
London
• “I’d do it now, before it’s too late,” writes Polly Toynbee (29 September) about the introduction of voting by proportional representation. Polly should take care what she wishes for. Electoral Calculus suggests at a general election now Reform UK would win 30.4% of the vote, the Tories 17.2% – a total of 47.6% – while Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens together would get 44.9%. The system might be changed, but a Nigel Farage/Robert Jenrick coalition of the right looks proportionally more feasible than one led by someone from the fractured left (but not Keir Starmer).
Charles Foster
Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire
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