• CHRIS Reeves (An alternative conference, August 5) says that Sir Keir Starmer is tougher on Labour members than on the Tories.

That surely is the most striking feature of inter-party politics in Britain during the past year as we slide towards increasingly authoritarian government under a supposedly libertarian prime minister. How can we explain it?

The economist Joseph Schumpeter said elections are not about how countries should be run but about choosing which among the élite occupy the top jobs.

In other words elections are not about policy choices. The latter are merely a façade for the ambitions of the top dogs on which they are largely agreed except for division of the spoils.

In the past great pains were taken to preserve the façade of genuine choice. Manifestos were issued and we were assured that this reflected party intentions.

That story has worn very thin! Could it be that the system has decided not to bother much any more about policies few can believe and effectively turn party politics into choices between personalities?

Members of parties expecting wide debate about policies have become a nuisance to be removed; as seems obvious within the Labour Party. Grassroots Tories have had little or no influence since forever.

I suggest that both the Tories and Labour in its present transformation at the top are now quietly uniting in support of what the Tories have always been – agents for crony capitalism.

Tony Blair’s regime changed little of what the Tories supplied in the 1980s, as David Reed remarks, but did succeed in putting a gloss on not doing so. The forthcoming possibly “New New Labour” can’t be bothered.

Is a drift towards in reality a one-party state under way smuggled in beneath “uniting to meet a national emergency”?

MICHAEL NEWLAND, NW5