Labour has left its loyal supporters disillusioned | Letters
I wonder how many members still clinging on to the Labour party winced at Gaby Hinsliff’s article (Ed Miliband’s stock is rising because he’s a rare commodity in Labour these days: a thinker, 27 March),Like everyone else, she recognises that Labour has become an intellectual vacuum, with its only clear features being unpleasant policies designed to exploit the far right’s prejudices,But the electorate is ahead here,They know that resurrecting the once admirable but now compromised Ed Miliband will do nothing to heal the existential injury in the party,Most people no longer hark back to the halcyon days of New Labour’s claim to build a better society.
They now recognise it as a swindle, with its toxic components of privatisation, private finance initiatives, excesses in the private financial sector and, of course, Iraq.Labour’s heavily curated view of its history is undermined by the data.The party lost votes steadily in every election between 1997 and 2010.This trend was only reversed in 2017, when a highly popular manifesto won Labour’s highest percentage of the vote this century against huge internal and external opposition.The reversion to traditional Labour in 2024 led to a drop of 3,000,000 votes from this high-water mark.
When presented with radical but fair policies, the electorate is willing to vote for them – both in 2017 and recently in Gorton and Denton,In contrast, the worthy but timid agenda of Miliband in 2015 was roundly rejected,The radical mantle has passed to the Greens, and unless Labour recognises the mistakes it made in its purging of the left, it is doomed,Of course, it cannot do this, and its supporters who have ignored the real electoral evidence are doomed to perpetual bewilderment,Hugh WilliamsBirmingham Both Andy Beckett (How tacking centre left will help Labour win the next election, 22 March) and Zoe Williams (12 March) recently argued that if Labour is to stand a chance of achieving a second term in office, it needs to move to the left of politics and form alliances with other left-leaning parties.
Labour must accept that the era of a dominant two-party parliamentary hegemony has ended and, as the latest analysis of voting patterns confirms, forthcoming elections will be characterised by five-party politics.A disillusioned electorate is now searching for any alternative to Labour and the Conservatives that offers them a promise that things can only get better.The existential predicament for Keir Starmer’s Labour party is whether or not it recognises this.If Labour chooses to cling to a parochial belief in the return of the status quo, it risks joining the Conservative party in ceasing to remain a significant governing force in UK politics.Peter RiddleWirksworth, Derbyshire For once in recent weeks, the Guardian published a realistic message (from Martin Datta, Letters, 23 March) about the way Keir Starmer is handling the UK response to Donald Trump’s illegal and reckless “adventure” in the Middle East.
No one on the opposition benches, nor indeed in his own party, could have dealt with this crisis in such a calm and measured way.That goes equally for the way that he has led the Labour government domestically to start to put right the economic and social wreckage that Tory governments have caused to this country in more than a decade.Harry BowerRotherham, South Yorkshire Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.
Brent crude hits $116 a barrel as Trump threatens to ‘blow up’ Iran’s oil wells and export hub
The price of oil rose sharply to $116 a barrel on Monday as Donald Trump threatened to “blow up” and “completely obliterate” Iranian electricity plants, oil wells and its export hub Kharg Island if it did not agree to a deal.Brent crude, the international benchmark for oil, rose by 1.6% on Monday after Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that if a deal was not agreed and the strait of Hormuz was not reopened, the US would take further action.He wrote: “We will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched’ …“This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year ‘Reign of Terror’.”The US president threatened to seize the Iranian export hub of Kharg Island in an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday
FCA to release details of UK car finance scandal compensation scheme
Millions of drivers will discover how much can they claim over the car finance scandal on Monday, as the City regulator sets out the final terms of its compensation scheme.The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will release the details of its redress programme for 14m motor finance agreements after 4.30pm, ensuring that the information comes out after stock markets close for trading.Regulators want to avoid large price fluctuations in the share prices of the biggest stock market-listed car loan providers, including Lloyds Banking Group, Santander, Barclays, and the specialist lender Close Brothers.The companies have been lobbying against the FCA’s proposals, which were put out for consultation in the final months of 2025, arguing that they amounted to a too-generous compensation bill for drivers
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Recently, the literary agent Kate Nash started noticing that the submission letters she was receiving from authors were becoming more thorough – albeit also more formulaic.“I took it as a rise in diligence,” she said. “I thought it was a good thing.”But then she had what she described as her eureka moment: the letter with the AI prompt right at the top. “It read: ‘Rewrite my query letter for Kate Nash including a comp to a writer she represents,’” she said
‘Our assumptions are broken’: how fraudulent church data revealed AI’s threat to polling
If you had been keeping tabs on the news about church attendance in Britain lately, you would be forgiven for thinking the country was in the midst of a Christian revival.Stories of swelling congregations, filled with young people returning to the flock, spurred on by everything from social media to a rise in bible sales appeared to be confirmed by a 2024 report from the Bible Society.Based on data collected by a YouGov survey, it claimed church attendance was increasing in England and Wales. The findings drove headlines, and the narrative was established.There was just one problem – the survey turned out to be based on “fraudulent” data and has been withdrawn
F1 must find answers to safety crisis after Bearman’s escape but there are no easy fixes | Giles Richards
Oliver Bearman emerging unhurt from a huge accident at the Japanese Grand Prix was considered a lucky escape. Formula One must think it is catching a break given there is a full month to work out how best to mitigate against it happening again. It is going to need every minute of that time given the complexity of the problem.Bearman’s Haas car was travelling at 307kmh (191mph) when he was forced to veer off track as he came up behind the relatively slow-moving Alpine of Franco Colapinto. The closing speed between the two cars was 50kmh, a frightening pace
Worcestershire overseas signing leaves one-day final early to catch flight to England
Worcestershire’s new overseas signing has arrived under a cloud after leaving a one-day final in South Africa in order to catch his flight to England. Beyers Swanepoel was playing for Lions against Titans on Sunday when, according to a report by Times Live, he set off for the airport “around the 43rd over” of the second innings without informing his teammates as to why. It was widely assumed he had picked up an injury.The all-rounder had bowled his full allocation of 10 overs, but because there was no injury, Lions were denied a substitute fielder for the final stages of the match. Titans went on to chase down the target with a ball to spare
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