Prof Alan Finlayson is right to question Labour’s approach to values when it is treated as a hollow exercise in developing “clearer, sharper, more uplifting messaging” (Labour’s preoccupation with ‘values’ is a basic political error, 6 August).
Simply communicating Labour party values is unlikely to win an electoral majority, particularly if it appears as an opportunistic alignment with the perceived values of the electorate. That would indeed amount to abandoning political leadership in the hope of gaining short-term party popularity.
However, the notion that political success is grounded in meeting demands while ignoring values is to miss the point. Values and policies to meet demands are not only inseparable but sequential. Effective political alliances or coalitions are not culturally monolithic, nor do they necessarily share a common political philosophy. But they do possess a consensus on core values, which in turn underpins and shapes their policy responses to the demands of the electorate.
The triumph of Vote Leave was based on a powerful, political consensus that the source of the UK’s social and economic problems was membership of the EU. Indeed, the Vote Leave campaign was able to frame the narrative in which that consensus was articulated. The challenge for the Labour party is how to forge alternative, convincing policies that meet the demands of an electorate, large sections of which no longer share their core values.
Dr Norman Brady
Norwich
• Alan Finlayson is spot on in his critique of Labour’s obsession with “values”, which are meaningless to the electorate if they are not operationalised into consistent policies. This doesn’t mean the vast smorgasbord of goodies offered by Jeremy Corbyn ahead of the 2019 election. It does mean, for example, converting a belief in equality of access, opportunity and outcomes to match the best standards in northern Europe through effective wealth taxation, including a windfall tax on the super-rich, a land value tax and progressive property and asset taxation.
There are many other examples of populist, centre-left demands that would have traction with the electorate, especially if Labour had the vision to seek an electoral alliance with the Greens and the Lib Dems to reverse the Brexit catastrophe, seek proportional representation to end Tory electoral dictatorships and promote an urgent green industrial revolution. The socially conservative, over-60s, ex-Labour “red wall” voters have been lost and no amount of “listening” will bring them back. Labour’s future lies with the neglected under-40s.
Philip Wood
Kidlington, Oxfordshire
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