The triumphalism of the Labour party over marginal Tory constituencies that they hope to win is misplaced (Letters, 17 April). What is actually happening is the final death throes of the theory of triangulation, which the US Democrats and UK Labour have been using for the last 20 years. This justified the move to the right by alleging that an electoral strategy of defining a position closer to the right than the left would win by dragging over wavering Tory voters.
This only worked if the Labour voters could be taken for granted: they would vote Labour under all circumstances and would never demand anything back in return. Thus the only offers that needed to be made were to Tory voters.
Alas, this is not the case in Scotland, where the voters emphatically do not want Toryism, or in England, where Ukip offers a delusional but very popular appeal to xenophobia. Thus any marginal Tory constituencies that may be won have to counteract losses in Scotland to the SNP and possibly English seats going to Ukip.
Triangulation really only worked for the 1997 election, and Labour’s electoral base started crumbling in 2005, a process that accelerated in 2010 and continues. The sad fact of modern progressive politics is that the Labour hierarchy still fails to understand that it is looking at the end of its strategy. Any viable future strategy cannot be based on the Tory floating voter.
Trevor Fisher
Stafford
• Polly Toynbee tells Green party supporters to vote tactically so as to ensure that Labour has a comfortable majority on 7 May (Our rotten system means once again we have to bring out the nose-pegs, 16 April).
But what tactic can we – as Green party supporters – use to vote for something we believe in? We do not believe in and oppose further austerity. But our “tactical” choice seems to be between two collections of cuts – one put together by a Labour-led coalition and the other by a Tory-led coalition.
If Green party supporters adopt this tactic it will simply help to ensure that we will have exactly the same kind of choice in 2020 and beyond. This doesn’t feel to us like a tactic: it feels more like capitulation. It’s time to leave the “old politics” behind.
Our tactic will be to vote for what we believe in. If enough voters adopt this tactic, the pressure to change our rotten voting system will be so great that there will be no need to reach for the nose-pegs in 2020.
Lucy Craig, Gordon Best
London
• George Monbiot (Just when hope and courage are called for, Labour promises bean-counting, 15 April) contributes an incisive analysis of the trap Labour has been forced into by the ruthless Conservative propaganda machine, but his list of constituencies where it is imperative to vote Labour to counter the “gleeful cruelties” of the Conservatives is too short.
One such is Finchley and Golders Green, where (as you report elsewhere) the excellent Labour candidate is slightly ahead. Many people still do not see that voting Green here will have an inevitable and dire consequence. Remember the wonderful line in the film Brassed Off : “You don’t meet anyone who votes for them but the buggers always seem to get in!” I know why.
Keith Richards
London
• George Monbiot asks, rightly, how Labour expects to attract the poor, the young and the disenfranchised. And then he suggests that in some constituencies, and in order to ensure Labour wins (and the Tories and Lib Dems don’t), Green voters should vote Labour. I don’t really get this.
Monbiot asks why Labour refuses to be the party that inspires us. Because it has stopped being a party of the left; because it has stopped being radical; because it has stopped focusing on what is good for the majority of people in this country and is more concerned about not upsetting the 1%.
So I would say: vote for what you believe in, in every constituency. Those of us who believe in radical politics for the common good don’t owe Labour our votes. I shall be voting Green in Hornsey and Wood Green because I believe in the local Green candidate and support the Green manifesto.
Martina Weitsch
London
• George Monbiot’s list of constituencies where one ought to vote Labour to keep out the Tories is very partial.
Lancaster and Fleetwood is another constituency where a strong Green surge would prevent Labour winning and keep the Tories in; and if I know of that one because it’s local, there must be many more.
I hope no one is misled by George’s inadequate list (in an otherwise excellent article) into inadvertently letting a Tory candidate win.
Richard Barnes
Windermere, Cumbria
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