If I understand Rafael Behr’s article correctly, Keir Starmer’s message is that “things may be bad, but trust me – I won’t do anything to make things worse” (Keir Starmer’s caution may be frustrating, but it’s right. Voters no longer trust big promises, 13 September).
“We are a safe pair of hands to run the economy” might appeal to that group of voters who are fed up with the Tory mismanagement of everything, but it offers little hope to those who are oppressed by the wrongs of society. I don’t think the message that we will do something to right the wrongs you are suffering if and when the economy improves has much appeal to those who are already struggling. Continuing this government’s policy of punching down, justifying public sector cuts to balance the books, simply alienates those on the margins.
What Behr appears not to notice is the canary in the coalmine. According to recent surveys, increasing numbers of young people have lost faith in democracy (Report, 11 September). Unlike us older voters, they cannot remember a time when democracy appeared to work for the benefit of the people. No politician could today claim, as one Labour minister did in the 1970s, that there is no homelessness.
Derrick Joad
Leeds
• Rafael Behr correctly adduces Keir Starmer’s experience as director of public prosecutions, where a consideration of sound evidence is vital, as an excellent preparation for the crucial decisions a prime minister will have to take.
True, but there is much more to him than this. When Helen Steel and David Morris were sued, in 1997, for libel by the McDonald’s Corporation, their case was lost twice and it took almost 10 years before it was finally won at the European court of human rights. The two had been unable to claim legal aid, and it was Starmer who supplied them with legal assistance, pro bono, during that time. This what we need – not someone who can deliver “visionary stump speeches” but someone of generous integrity, in contrast to the self-interested cronyism of this Tory crowd.
Bee Hepworth
Leigh-on-Sea, Essex
• Rafael Behr says Keir Starmer’s caution “feels like a bleak proposition to those activists and radicals (of left and right) who like to break things and see incremental change as pointless fidgeting with the status quo”. This activist doesn’t want to break anything, and resents being lumped in with those who do.
Behr also fails to draw a necessary distinction between extremism and radicalism. The root of our current problems lies in a system of governance no longer fit for purpose – the “elective dictatorship” that the late Lord Hailsham starkly defined decades ago. As such, only radical reform will address the problem. As for the cynical and disillusioned: they’ll vote tactically to get the Tories out at the next election. If they have no hope, it’s because none of the parties are offering them any.
Lyn A Dade
AllianceNow.uk
• Keir Starmer’s problem is less that we voters distrust big promises, and more that we distrust him to stick to a single one.
Archie Lauchlan
Hastings, East Sussex
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