Labour is failing to promote core Labour values such as equality and welfare (The Guardian view on Sir Keir Starmer: his party remains a mystery to voters, 4 April) because it is still wedded to the “handbag economics” of neoliberals such as the late Nigel Lawson. The view of the state as like a household, constrained by a shortage of money, bears no relation to the public monetary largesse of 21st-century states. Since the 1990s deflation crisis in Japan, the financial crisis of 2007-08 and the pandemic, central banks in key economies have been in full flow. However, this has mainly supported the financial sector and the market generally, rather than public welfare.
To open up this new agenda, fundamental questions need to be asked about the creation and circulation of money in the 21st century. Why is publicly generated money (QE) used to bolster the (financial) market rather than public services? Why can banks borrow from the central bank, when governments have to borrow from private finance? Why is that government debt, when bought back by the central bank using publicly generated QE, not then cancelled?
If Labour is to win the next election (rather than the Tories losing it), it must open a debate about the issue of publicly generated money, and the role of the public economy in building the true wealth (wellth) of the people.
Prof Mary Mellor
Newcastle upon Tyne
• You say that Keir Starmer has had 12 slogans since becoming leader of the Labour party, “each one more meaningless than the last”. May I suggest a very simple one that I really believe would strike a chord with voters: “Labour cares”?
I should like to think the party does care about tens of thousands of British children going hungry; about hospices and other charities wondering how they can continue to provide vital services; about the burnout rate of teachers; about the huge problems of staffing etc in the NHS and in our broken social care system; about all those working people who have to depend on food banks; and about the climate crisis that threatens us all.
It’s surely time that Sir Keir and others had the courage to speak out – and show us that there is a party worthy of our votes.
Joy Webb
Penistone, South Yorkshire
• I cannot fully agree with your editorial view that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party is a mystery. On Brexit, Labour and its leader have been clear and consistent: there will be no entry for the UK into the single market or the customs union.
There remains the mystery of how Labour will make a “success” of Brexit – something its advocates and apologists have necessarily failed to do (except perhaps in Northern Ireland, which retains single market access).
Your call is for Starmer and Labour to be “bold”: but they cannot be bold while being bound to the lies, imperial nostalgia and exceptionalist fabulations of Brexit; nor can Labour be a force for change while frightened of the conservatism of so-called red wall Labour to Tory swing voters.
Labour is a Brexit party. It is not for me.
John Hully
Royston, Hertfordshire
• I read that Labour has not yet found its “killer slogan”. Here’s one they can use, free, that covers most of the current Tory party shambles: “You deserve better!” Alas, I feel it’s unlikely to be adopted as it also applies to the current Labour leadership.
Kev Crocombe
Bridlington, East Yorkshire
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