I agree with Andrew Rawnsley that Labour’s manifesto is not as radical as some suppose (“The really scary thing about Corbyn? He’s not radical at all”, Comment). Yet perhaps the truly “scary” element of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership is his unwillingness to compromise.
Although the Labour party under his direction espouses inclusion, the true mark of inclusiveness is, in reality, how successful a party is at elections. Some governments are made by their opponents’ weaknesses rather than their own popularity (the imminent May administration, for instance), but Labour leaders such as Tony Blair rode to his 179-seat majority on a wave of optimism about his proposed programme for government, showing his ability to reach out to all areas of society; his wide range of media endorsements is also a testament to this.
Corbyn, in contrast, resembles Donald Trump in the way he is satisfied pandering to his supporters alone. He fails to understand that political compromise does not indicate an abandonment of principle, but is in fact the price of office. When Tony Blair’s first manifesto promised not to raise income tax, it was not because his evil neoliberal ideology made him long for a small state of low taxes, but because such a policy it would help open the path to a much needed Labour government.
It’s all very well having a well-meaning manifesto, but unless you win power it will never be implemented. Labour leaders have understood this in the past. We will be out of office until we remind ourselves of the importance of compromise.
Gabriel Osborne
Bristol
Andrew Rawnsley says that voters rejected the 2015 Labour manifesto because “it added up to less than the sum of its parts when it came to plausibility”. This implies that voting in elections is a rational process, based on the dispassionate comparison of party manifestos.
However, research has shown that most people vote largely by gut feeling. In the past, people voted according to social class, or how their parents voted, and although this is much less the case now, the process is no more rational. Most people never read manifestos (no more than 27%, according to a 2010 poll), but are swayed by what they see in the media.
More than ever, this is based on personalities and largely on image rather than substance. Labour has suffered disproportionately from this: once the predominantly rightwing press gets its claws into a party leader, it is virtually impossible for them to recover. This happened to Neil Kinnock and Ed Miliband and is clearly happening to Jeremy Corbyn. Whatever their strengths and weaknesses as leaders, their fate is decided on how they come across in the media and incidents such as Miliband’s bacon sandwich affair have an exaggerated significance.
Steve Bamford
Sheffield
Andrew Rawnsley dismisses Harold Wilson, “in so much as he is remembered at all”, as “a slippery let-down”. His governments having presided over the abolition of the death penalty, legalisation of abortion, decriminalisation of homosexuality and legislation on sexual discrimination, I would say that, whether he is remembered or not, there are still countless people today who he did not let down.
Andrew Watson
Herstmonceux, East Sussex
