Nesrine Malik is profoundly right (Why Labour’s ‘law and order’ tribute act feels hollow and overblown, 10 April). The direction adopted by these new adverts, and the mentality that inspired them, can only ultimately damage the Labour party.
Labour will win the next election as a direct result of successive calamities brought about by a dozen years of brain‑dead Tory government. This new advertising campaign is as panicky as it is unprincipled. It’s this lack of belief in the common sense of the electorate that sent Tony Blair scurrying off to meet Rupert Murdoch in Hayman Island in 1995, creating a relationship that blew Labour off course throughout its term in office.
Gutter politics was imported from the US and Australia; to wilfully indulge in it represents another certain step in the destruction of sustainable plural democracy.
David Puttnam
Skibbereen, County Cork, Ireland
• Ad hominem, now ad feminam (Labour defends Sunak attack ads as it turns fire on PM’s wife, 11 April). What target next: the Sunaks’ children for being privately educated? Why, in the name of all that’s decent and honourable, given the open goal of the Tories’ disastrous administration to attack, has the Labour party chosen this grubby bit of ankle-hacking?
Alexandra Smithies
Oban, Argyll and Bute
• I look forward to a Labour party poster in the current series inscribed: “Do you think we should seek to re-enter the EU single market as a stepping stone to rejoining the EU? Rishi Sunak doesn’t.” Wouldn’t it be nice!
Alan Fairs
Bewdley, Worcestershire
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