Letter of the week: Labour's sorry stories
Andrew Marr is right about external shocks remaking countries (Cover Story, 27 June). But gifted politicians show countries how to adapt and survive them. Lloyd George in the First World War, Churchill in the Second, and Bevin and Bevan in 1945 all explained problems and solutions in simple, memorable terms. Not everyone agreed with them, but everyone knew what they were trying to do.
Labour must urgently learn from their example. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor are hard-working managers, but colourless and cardboard communicators. Neither seems to have (or be capable of conveying) a clear and compelling vision of where our country is going and how we get there. Consequently, they come over as making piecemeal administrative decisions (winter fuel allowance and benefits cuts, then partial and ill-planned U-turns) without explaining how any of it fits into an overall plan for Britain. This government must start evoking a consistent policy narrative and vision. If it can't tell a joined-up story of hope, supported by logically connected policies, it will inevitably lose its battle with Farage's opportunistic but far more fluent storytelling.
Robert Dear, Enfield
Time to unionise
As someone who reads the New Statesman in order, Politics followed by the Encounter (27 June) gave me the idea that, in an 'era of personality politics', Mick Lynch could lead a new leftist party set up by Corbyn. The problem was not Corbyn's policies but his personality, whereas Lynch excelled at 'put downs of… junior ministers' and 'eviscerations of… television presenters'.
Moira Sykes, Manchester
Eddie Dempsey's understandable desire to see a trade union revival needs to be earthed in a humble understanding of why so many working-class people turned against unions in the 1980s, and kept the Conservatives in power. Closed shops, block votes at conferences, hostility to innovation and continual strikes, all lost the unions credibility. On the other hand, a friend of mine in rail network management always valued the contributions of his union reps, because they knew the business better than he did and wanted to make things work better. So… a little less class warfare, perhaps?
Chris Hudson, Morpeth, Northumberland
Book smarts
I enjoyed Simon Winder's excellent piece (Diary, 27 June) on the trepidations of authorship and the pre-publication fear of others pipping his prized book to the post. I recently had a historical novel published, The Poet Laurie Ate, and share his pain. Congratulations to Winder on his effectiveness in bringing his book's title so readily to the attention of the New Statesman readership – something a retiring debutant author such as myself would never dream of doing…
Ash James, Stourbridge
Movement but no progress
Mindful of the fact that 2026 will be the centenary of the General Strike, I was prompted to ask, on reading Anoosh Chakelian's article on overcrowded housing (Bursting the Bubble, 27 June) just how much progress has been made at resolving many of the issues that led to it. Certainly poor and insufficient housing was one. Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, one-time minister of health after the First World War, charged with doing something about the housing problem, apparently chose to tell 'young couples to continue sharing their parents' cottages and tenements, rather than seeking a home of their own'. Boscawen lasted one month in office, supposedly. Plus ça change.
Derek Evans, Stafford
Doctored statistics
I am puzzled by Phil Whitaker's report from Canada (Health Matters, 27 June). He says one in five Canadians have no GP, so new patients come to him are already suffering serious illnesses. He then says Canadian GPs are finding a 'sweet spot' where 'it is possible to provide high-quality primary care in the present era'. So, first-class service for 80 per cent, no service for 20 per cent? I really don't think this is the sort of statistic the NHS should be aiming for.
Peter Norton, London N6
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None the wiser
Andrew Jefford (Drink, 27 June) addresses the idea that wines can somehow possess 'minerality'. An even shakier claim is that a particular wine shows 'class'. I once dared ask the tutor at a tasting what this meant. My neighbour (pink jacket, blue-spotted bow tie) interjected with the hackneyed, but no less insulting: 'If you have to ask, you will never know.' I still don't.
Alan Conn, Newcastle upon Tyne
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[See also: Labour's rebel MPs are rubbish at maths]
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QUENTIN LETTS: Step forward Comrades Corbyn and Sultana! It demands a special sort of dimness and self regard to make such a bungle of the launch of a new political party
Historians may – or, there again, may not – record that the Left's tectonic plates shifted at 8.11pm on Thursday. That was when Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana pressed the button on her electronic device and posted a message on X to say she was quitting Labour to 'co-lead the founding of a new party' with Jeremy Corbyn. 'The time is now,' announced Comrade Sultana, 31. 'We are not going to take this any more. In 2029 the choice will be stark: socialism or barbarism.' Barbarism! The balloon had gone up. Leftist civil war had been declared. It was 'action stations' and 'en garde' and 'red alert', with the emphasis on the red. A Leftist breakaway movement had been expected for months, rumours building like summer thunder clouds. On Wednesday evening, with Labour rocked by parliamentary divisions over welfare cuts and with crisis surrounding the future of that leaky bucket Rachel Reeves, Mr Corbyn revealed an inch of ankle on ITV. Interviewer Robert Peston asked the former Labour leader – who was ejected from his old party by his onetime lieutenant Sir Keir Starmer – if he was really going to start a new party. The Che Guevara of Islington North stroked his beardlet, sat back on his sofa with just a hint of prosperous tummy, and replied that there was 'a thirst' for such a venture and more would be disclosed anon. Twenty-four hours later young Zarah had activated the fission. Kaboom. The Great Leftist Split had been triggered. Or perhaps not. As yesterday's brave new dawn broke in north London it became evident that a small mushroom cloud had formed over Islington. Mr Corbyn, 76, had exploded in the most terrible bate. Ms Sultana, with youthful impatience, had jumped the gun. The dramatic reveal had been bungled. In political terms it was a case of what old-fashioned doctors used to call ejaculatio praecox. Despite Ms Sultana's 'the time is now' claim, the time was meant to have been later, possibly on the eve of the Labour Party conference in the autumn when it might have had considerably more impact. But now the semi-secret was out, and it was running up and down the cloisters of Westminster with nothing to cover its modesty. They may be socialist egalitarians but Lefties are just as good at hating each other as Brexity Right-wingers. If anything, they do it with less humour. You only had to look at the sulphurous scenes in the Commons during Tuesday's welfare debate. Even after the Government had caved in, Labour MPs such as Andy McDonald, Imran Hussain and Ian Lavery were foul to the Government. What they now must think of Zarah Sultana, one dreads to think. To launch a political party is quite something. To bungle the launch of one is even more of an achievement. It demands a special type of dimness, muddle and vaunting self-regard. Ms Sultana seems to have thought herself a sufficiently big raisin to break the news herself, only to have her veteran co-conspirator rage at her impetuosity. Once he had recovered his equilibrium Mr Corbyn himself issued a message on X yesterday lunchtime to say that 'real change is coming' (NB not yet) and that Ms Sultana would 'help us build a real alternative' to Labour. You will notice that is not quite the same as confirming that she would be 'co-leading' the thing. Mr Corbyn's message added that 'the democratic foundations of a new kind of party will soon take shape'. Translation: you can forget about calling yourself a co-leader, young lady, until you have been voted as such by the new party's rank and file members. This new party does not yet have a public name so for the time being we should perhaps call it The People's Front of Judaea. This is not some jibe at Ms Sultana and Mr Corbyn's trenchant, some might say excessive, support for Palestinian independence. The People's Front of Judaea is the knot of political obsessives in Monty Python's Life Of Brian film, set in 1st century AD Jerusalem. When asked if they are the Judaean People's Front, or indeed the Popular Front, these scowling nutters become infuriated. 'The only people we hate more than the Romans are the f****** Judaean People's Front!' spits the ringleader, Reg. These days Reg might possibly be called Jeremy. Monty Python's satire harpoons the fragmentising nature of party politics. With each bifurcation, each indignant walk-out by politicians in proud possession of their most precious principles, movements become smaller and rivalries only increase. Eventually you end up with tiny cabals of harrumphing prigs who are more concerned about their pet causes than they are in trying to form a broad party that might, to quote the Book of Common Prayer, allow the country to be 'godly and quietly governed'. Quietness, however, is not really Zarah Sultana's thing. When she speaks in the House of Commons it is invariably in an urgent, tremulous voice, as if she needs to dash to the lavatory the moment her speech has ended. This one is a quavery commissar, making blood-curdling accusations about capitalism and Zionism and – dark organ chords, please – the dreaded Tories. Anyone who is not as Left-wing as her is, as she might say, 'barbaric'. All this is tremendously lively on social media feeds. She flies off the bat in a TikTok video or what-have-you. But in the flesh, for anything more than a 30-second burst, its rigid insistence can become tiresome. Mr Corbyn may have a public reputation for political extremism but in the flesh he is a less intense personality. He is softly spoken, can occasionally be droll, even charming. I'd say it is not impossible that, while he probably admires Sister Zarah's energy, he finds her rather exhausting. As might the voters. Put it like this: you would not want to share a space rocket with Zarah Sultana. She'd hog the oxygen. And this, perhaps, is the delusional weakness of modern politics and may explain the atomisation of both Left (Labour's vote being eaten into by independents, by George Galloway's Workers Party and soon by the Corbyn start-up) and Right (the Conservatives have been lopped in half by Nigel Farage's Reform).
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Sir Keir Starmer under mounting Labour rebel pressure to scrap two-child benefit cap
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