Your editorial (18 February) is right to reference the postwar desire to rebuild Britain as a model for Labour today. One could go further and refer to the Beveridge report of 1942 and the five issues it listed: want (caused by poverty), ignorance (lack of education), squalor (poor housing), idleness (a lack of jobs) and disease (inadequate healthcare provision).
These were the problems to be addressed by the welfare state established by Clement Attlee’s Labour government, but the pandemic has shown the glaring failures of the system and the need for those fundamental issues to be addressed once more.
What is needed is another blueprint for the future, not simply tinkering at the edges or a recovery bond. Keir Starmer may have begun the process – now he needs to show much greater vision to reclaim the lost Labour voters, just as Attlee did in 1945. And it is worth bearing in mind that it was the programme that appealed to the voters rather than Attlee’s personality.
Neil Wynn
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire
