Andrew Rawnsley is right to point to fundamental differences between the Conservative and Labour leaders (“Rishi Sunak v Keir Starmer: battle of the speeches revealed the critical choice facing Britain”, Comment). For too long we have tolerated the meme of a “divided country” as a media lament. In politics and ethics, division and argument are symptoms of a democracy – the more, the healthier. We are not at “all in this together”. Conservatives are the party of the “bedroom tax” and cuts to child benefit. Labour is the party that lifted 500,000 children out of poverty. Since the Second World War, the Conservatives have never left government without significant debt; one of the rare periods of budget surplus was under Labour and Gordon Brown’s chancellorship. What is corrosive of democracy is the voter who complains: “I’m really not sure who to vote for.” The choices are, as Rawnsley suggests, far starker and easier than that.
Prof Saville Kushner
Liverpool
The “critical choice facing Britain” is between Sunak, who can barely keep control, and Starmer, who offers to give back control by allowing public access to the levers of power rather than placing them under the lock and key of shady cabinet deals.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
