Polly Toynbee assumes few people understand Labour’s parlous national electoral situation (The truth hurts. No wonder Corbynites block their ears, 27 September). However, it is clear to most, given the Scottish referendum, the recent general election and the referendum on Europe that Labour faces defeat in the next general election, whether the party is led by Jeremy Corbyn or not. The danger is that a loss will be seen as a consequence of his leadership, while the underlying problems will go unattended. For support Toynbee’s article refers to “A solid old [Labour] councillor from Sunderland” who says that people are turning away from Labour and will not vote again for Labour “while Corbyn’s the leader”.
It is disingenuous (or a logical slip?) not to acknowledge that the “turning away from Labour” (often to Ukip) occurred when Corbyn was not leader. It follows, surely, that the effects of economic and social exclusion – with the perceived negative corollary of immigration – is at the heart of such disaffection. Much of which is arguably the co-responsibility of previous “there is no alternative” supporters within Labour and the persuasive power money can buy to promote the current ideological climate.
Edwin Prevost
Matching Tye, Essex
• What Polly Toynbee and other supporters of the parliamentary Labour party have failed to pick up on is that the policies of the past have failed to deliver. Labour have now lost two elections in which their policy offer was designed to appeal to moderate Tory voters. Whatever may be said about Labour’s policy offer at the last election, it was intended not to frighten the middle England horses. Radical policies such as rail nationalisation were rejected in favour of a meaningless compromise measure. All governments since 1990 have followed John Major’s policy lead of offering a mix of right-of-centre economic policies with left-of-centre social policies. The past 26 years have demonstrated the failure of this policy as the social divide within the country has worsened and economic policy has become one failure after another. Interest rates are at rock bottom levels because the economy is so fragile that any moderate increase would tip it into recession and perhaps worse. Yet politicians on both sides of the parliamentary divide want to continue to espouse the same old failed policies.
While the majority of Labour MPs will find it impossible to support the “progressive politics” of Jeremy Corbyn, they can still contribute to the progressive politics of this country by uniting with their ideological soulmates in the Osbornite faction of the Conservative party to prevent a hard Brexit and the damage it would inflict on the social and economic fabric of the UK.
Derrick Joad
Leeds
• Polly Toynbee writes of a councillor who claims that the new members in his constituency aren’t getting involved in canvassing. In my ward in south-east London, many of us who have been out canvassing in the last few elections are new members. If her councillor’s experience is more representative than mine, as it may be, we need to persuade the new membership to get out and campaign. I don’t believe that condemning them as naive is going to do that.
Giles Barrett
London
• Has the split threatening the Labour Party reached the Guardian? The dismay aroused here by Polly Toynbee in Tuesday’s paper was only lifted by Paul Mason in G2 (The real lesson from Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership victory? You can’t hold back history, 27 September).
Alec Gordon
London
• Paul Mason is right when he says we can’t hold back history. The steady tramp of yesteryear has long demonstrated that the judgment of Karl Marx was fatally flawed, both economically and politically. Sadly the left everywhere has failed to develop either an alternative to Marx’s ideology, or a detailed transition from a real today to a preferred tomorrow.
Martin London
Henllan, Denbighshire
• Dr Robert Crowcroft is dismayed about the calls for unity in the Labour party (Letters, 26 September). “Unity is not a good in itself,” he claims. Perhaps not, but he seems to be oblivious to the arguments from many academics, commentators and politicians of every stripe that good government is dependent on a strong opposition who will challenge the governing party’s ideas; and that a strong opposition will not emerge from a divided party. Therefore, if we are to have good government from this Conservative party, there needs to be a strong Labour opposition. That will not happen should the party lack unity. It is not putting party before country as he suggests, but a commitment to democratic government.
David Rowbottom
Stockport
• What is the evidence for Lynsey Hanley’s claim (The long read, 27 September) that “to believe in the strength of collective public institutions such as unions, publicly funded health and education systems” was regarded by Labour as “unhelpfully Bolshevik”? Labour’s record of investment in these services and many of its other policies belies this glib assertion, though one can always argue more remained to be done. And I write as a former member of Labour’s national executive who criticised the simplistic “hard-working families” mantra.
Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords
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