Sir Keir Starmer

• ­I HOPE that Sir Keir Starmer, or at least one of his colleagues, scans through Camden New Journal every week, noting the multitude of stories about things that are having deep and harmful impacts on the lives of ordinary people in his constituency, (open letter to Sir Keir Starmer: Is the Labour Party turning blue? June 29).

And perhaps they should take a look at the numerous letters almost every week lamenting the failure of Labour to even mention the disastrous things which are damaging our country after decades of lousy Tory policies.

And in those decades I include the 13 years of Tony Blair / Gordon Brown governments which failed to change any of the key policies, hence the financial crisis that Gordon Brown had to deal with (and extremely well, I must add).

But they didn’t even repeal the right-to-buy Tory policy which has seen about one-third of former council homes fall into the hands – or pockets – of landlords!

So the neo-liberal economic policies continue to rip our country apart while devastating the lives of millions, paid less than even the Conservative less-than-minimum wage, while companies and billionaires dodge every penny of tax they can through the myriad tax loopholes which, again, Tony Blair failed to close.

I know Labour faces a hostile billionaire-owned press which will attack almost every policy designed to help our people live; but every single aspect of what is wrong in Britain today is directly attributable to Tory policies… homelessness, the National Health Service mess, food poverty, changes in the voting system, and on and on.

Labour simply has to develop policies to deal with the various disasters and keep telling people the truth again and again and again. Sooner or later the message will get through to all but the deafest ears.

Just look at what the immediate post-war Labour government achieved despite the massive devastation wrought by that war: tens of thousands of “homes fit for heroes” and a National Health Service which is the envy of the world, despite Tory efforts to undermine it right from the start and continuing still.

Sadly the lives of ordinary Britons today are barely better than that post-war generation. Millions of people are struggling to get places where they can afford to live, millions having trouble feeding their families, while the NHS struggles to keep supporting those needing medical help.

And every single part of what is wrong is directly and clearly the fault of lousy Tory policies, some decades old, others more recent such as George Osborne’s deliberate austerity policies, while the billionaires laugh all the way to their offshore banks on the Channel Islands, in Bermuda, or wherever else they have secreted their billions.

Yes Labour is turning blue: but not as blue in the face as I am!

DAVID REED
Eton Avenue, NW3