Aditya Chakrabortty seeks to analyse Keir Starmer’s and Labour’s attitudes to class (For Labour to reach alienated working-class voters, Starmer needs to treat them less like tools, 12 October). My background is similar to Starmer’s: son of a unionised skilled craftsman, brought up in a modest suburban semi on the edge of London, but thanks partly to a free university education with a grant – I was the first in my family to go – I’ve achieved professional middle-class status. And, yes, I reach for my cafetiere first thing in the morning.
Chakrabortty argues that Starmer does not really know where he stands. I’d argue that Labour’s language, rooted in aspiration and the notion of the “class ceiling”, suggests otherwise; that being working class is not something that you celebrate, but that you leave behind. It celebrates those, like Starmer and me, who have moved out. In a society in which full-time work fails to pay the bills for a growing number of people, and with social mobility increasingly dependent on inheritance, it’s not an approach that can begin to address our huge inequalities.
Neil Schofield-Hughes
Cardiff
• Aditya Chakrabortty suggests that the Labour party is offering workers “little more than spare change”. This is patent nonsense. It makes the assumption that the working class are sheep to be herded by any passing leftwing shepherd. In fact – clearly shown by the so-called red wall constituency debacle of 2019 – the reality is that they can discern what policies and personalities they trust and will vote accordingly. The Labour party is committed to assembling a broad coalition of interests to secure a mandate for radical change at the next election. This includes the cafetiere class, the business class and the working class. Without such an alliance supporting Labour, the country will be doomed to another Tory term.
Martyn Taylor
London
• How is this diatribe of us (the far‑left good guys) and them (the so-called centrists) posturing helpful to anyone vulnerable? Why reinflate and perpetuate the division Aditya Chakrabortty claims to decry? Where does the worry that Keir Starmer is likely to fail actually take struggling working-class people? Speaking as a chronically despairing Labour supporter, saved from utter hopelessness by Starmer’s steady ongoing rescue mission, please let us (together) favour last week’s flicker of optimism over destructive nitpicking.
Lesley Moore
Burwash, East Sussex
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