The complex challenges of the 21st century are not going to be met by any single party, but an alliance that mobilises every progressive in the pursuit of a good society. The Labour party has a big part to play in that broad political, economic, intellectual and civic alliance – fitting with its history and traditions. The party was founded on principles of pluralism and cooperation. It was a federation of unions and socialist societies that cooperated for common purpose. Its big electoral breakthrough came in 1906 because the Liberal party stood aside for them in 30 seats.
This history and tradition should not be abandoned just when the country needs it most. When Labour goes into government, it must take with it a culture of partnership with those within and beyond the boundaries of our own party.
We are dismayed to learn that Labour is looking to expel Neal Lawson, executive director of Compass, a leading advocate of the benefits of cross-party working and pluralism (“MP slams ‘illiberal’ Labour in expulsion row”, News). The idea that one small part of one party can rule the chaotic waves of the 21st century is a non-starter. Neither the Labour party nor anyone else is going to impose a better future on us; that can only be negotiated by all of us.
Lord Larry Whitty, ex Labour general secretary, Lord Peter Hain, ex Labour secretary of state, John Denham, ex Labour minister, Lord Stewart Wood, Baroness Helena Kennedy, Baroness Ruth Lister, Lord Clive Brooke
French riots are a warning
“What’s happening in France is a warning to us all,” concludes your leader (“Spreading riots tell a grim tale of the growing gulf between haves and have-nots”, Comment). The origins of the riots lie not only in social inequality and the “deep issues of racism and discrimination in law enforcement” highlighted by the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights on 30 June. They also lie, as you say, in France’s “dogmatic insistence on racial assimilation, secularism and one-size-fits-all identity”, which has become even more strident since the threat of Islamism from the 1990s.
Above all, however, they lie in the fact that the brutal war of decolonisation of French Algeria did not end in 1962 but was imported into the French metropolis. Riot police who talk of war to quell the “savage hordes” of the banlieues behave in the same way as paratroopers who launched the Battle of Algiers in 1957 to root out Algerian rebels.
British readers have no cause for complacency. The UNHCR warned the UK last December that the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda was a violation of human rights; racism has been shown to be institutional in the Home Office, police and cricket; and it would take little to provoke a repeat of the riots of 1981 and 2011 among Britain’s own marginalised and stigmatised youth with roots in its former empire.
Robert Gildea
Oxford
Pity the poor MPs
You quote MPs stepping down at the next election as saying that “you shouldn’t underestimate the extent to which being an MP has become not particularly pleasant. The amount of abuse that’s thrown at us has increased, the conditions have become worse”; and “it’s been quite a demanding few years. That will have accelerated some people’s decision in regards to when to leave.” (“Johnson, stress and poll slump blamed as Tory MP exodus grows”, News).
Nothing unique there. Could we not substitute teacher, nurse, shop worker and myriad other jobs? The difference is that Tory MPs have for 13 years had the power to improve things for the rest of us.
Chris Willis
Oxford
Don’t take away the music
Re “Hooked on classics? But if you want to learn to play, you’d better be posh” (Tomiwa Owolade, Comment): in 1992, I was proud to tell a music education symposium in Vienna that the new English national curriculum would require all children from five to 14 to be taught to compose (ie invent music), to perform and to listen to music with understanding. There were gasps from the audience and afterwards colleagues marvelled that das Land ohne Musik could implement such a visionary approach. This under a Tory government.
My entire music education had been free: flute lessons in school, the county youth orchestra and my university degree all paid for by the local authority. Throughout my life as a professional musician and music educator, I have witnessed the many benefits of classical music in education. Before my recent retirement, as part of Klavierfestival Ruhr’s visionary education programme, I taught social skills to refugees in schools in Duisburg through practical creative music-making using classical music to bypass the limitations of their rudimentary German language skills.
For most children in England, these opportunities for creative artistic development have gone; music has been virtually eliminated from the curriculum. What a tragic loss of a life-enhancing part of a child’s education.
Richard McNicol
Sherston, Malmesbury, Wiltshire
Tomiwa Owolade says that his music teacher told him the name of the former England football manager Fabio Capello meant “fabulous hair”. Just like classical music, Latin should be available to all, and that would have shown the connection with the word “faba” meaning “bean”. So “Fabio Capello” means “bean-grower hair”.
Michael Bulley
Chalon-sur-Saône, France
How to cure capitalism
Will Hutton favours regulation as a method of taming the excess of capitalism (“Now, water bosses, you must show how capitalism can work for the common good”, Comment). I think there are cheaper ways in which this could be achieved.
First, reintroduce advance corporation tax. Previously, when a company paid a dividend it had to pay the government corporation tax to reclaim against its final tax bill. Second, introduce a limit of, say, £1m, above which loan interest is no longer tax-deductible. Third, limit tax relief for directors’ salaries; ie don’t place any limits on salaries but rather over a certain figure, say £500,000, the company cannot claim the expense. Finally, introduce national insurance to dividends. This would end the situation where people can pretend to be self employed, set up a limited company and pay dividends without national insurance.
None of the above requires regulation, and all would convert many large “non-profit-making” companies into taxable citizens.
Christopher Bowser
High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire
Genocide: heed the warnings
Simon Tisdall is right that “treating genocide as a rare, usually historical occurrence is nonsense” (“China, Myanmar and now Darfur… the horror of genocide is here again”, World Affairs Commentary). The challenge is not to wait for the moment of attempted destruction to be breached. There are always warnings. Many of us warned the UK government that such risks were rising in Sudan – we did so in 2019, 2021, 2022 and in the days before chaos broke in Khartoum in April. We warned the government of rising risks to Rohingya populations in Rakhine in 2012, 2014, 2016 and in the weeks before a coordinated campaign forced the massive exodus in summer 2017.
What we should all be asking is precisely how are the UK’s stated commitments to help prevent mass-atrocity crimes translated into policy, resourcing and decision-making when these warnings are raised? In these moments violence can still be mitigated. The government recently created a central hub in Whitehall tasked with preventing atrocity crimes but little is known of its mandate across the Foreign Office or by those covering Britain’s response to atrocities. These appalling crimes, far from being rare are likely becoming more frequent as the world heats and the impacts of climate change intensify. Identity-based mass violence poses one of the most significant threats to human and global security but the UK currently lacks both the strategy and policy to confront or prevent it.
Dr Kate Ferguson, co-executive director, Protection Approaches
London SE11
