ON two consecutive days, your Letters Pages have had correspondence concerning Jeremy Corbyn, each blaming him for the Conservative majority in the 2019 election.

Celia Judge (October 27) says that "the very real fear of a Labour government led by that left-wing ideologue Jeremy Corbyn" led to huge support for the Conservatives.

What utter tosh. Mr Corbyn was at best centre-left. He is one of the few decent people still in Parliament, and could not possibly have trashed the country the way the current gang of far-right "idealogues" have done.

Mr Corbyn's defeat was down to the mainstream media, who rubbished his every syllable, which, predictably, the great British public meekly swallowed.

What the country was left with was a bumbling joke of a leader, the laughing stock of the world, who lasted three disastrous years, and caved in to two more ridiculous joke figures who have since trashed the economy.

Mr Corbyn is better than this.
Kevin Orr, Bishopbriggs

• CELIA Judge blames the very existence of Jeremy Corybn on the collapse of the "Red Wall" seats, a fact that is difficult to equate with the massive influx of new members to the Labour Party during his stewardship.

My interpretation of events is that Jeremy Corbyn was vilified and deliberately hounded out of office by a campaign smearing him with anti-Semitic accusations which were never, and could never be proven to be, true. He always was and still is a supporter of the rights of the people of Palestine. That is why he was targeted and ousted. It isn’t coincidental that as soon as he was gone and replaced by Sir Keir Starmer that the topic of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party disappeared from the media. The fact that almost half of Labour MPs are members of the pressure group Labour Friends of Israel may be a significant factor in the event.

Why Ms Judge should balk at the thought of a “left-wing ideologue” leading a UK government beats me when the indisputable fact is that recent Tory or Tony Blair Red-Tory governments have systematically reduced the UK’s global standing both economically and politically. Which “left-wing ideologue” has recently trashed the living standards and life-expectancy of UK citizens, or inflicted austerity on the country or facilitated the transfer of wealth to the billionaires? However, she need not worry, for as the Corbyn debacle proves, there isn’t the slightest chance of the Establishment which controls Westminster and the press ever allowing a genuine socialist government taking real control of the UK.
David J Crawford, Glasgow

What happened to trickling down?

A POINT of interest your readers may delight to know is that in 2016 (the year of the Brexit referendum) the UK had 77 billionaires – and now in 2022 UK that number has increased to 177 billionaires (ref : Sunday Times Rich List).

I wonder how many people are now enjoying the financial glow from the trickle-down wealth we must surely be getting from our new billionaires?
E McGowan, Edinburgh

Who understands the Tory crisis?

IT has been interesting reading letters in The Herald attempting to make sense of the seemingly interminable crisis in the Conservative Party as it desperately tries to cling to office.

Almost certainly there will come a time when an individual left standing will be able to say, paraphrasing Lord Palmerston's remarks on the Schleswig-Holstein question in the 19th century, "only three people understood the Conservative Party in the summer and autumn of 2022, one is dead, one has gone mad and I've forgotten."
Brian Harvey, Hamilton

• PAUL Lewis (Letters, October 27) claims a General Election means "there would be no legislation passed or any Government plans being implemented". Considering the shambles at Westminster and the latest Cabinet of incompetent dimwits, that can only be a good thing.
James Morrow, Glasgow

We need Labour urgently

BRIAN Wilson asserted that “Mr Sunak’s wider politics are far from liberal, as his Cabinet line-up will surely confirm ("Rishi Sunak’s first big test: Rees-Mogg and the Brexit bill", The Herald, October 25).

And so it came to pass. Given the appointments to his Cabinet (Suella Braverman, Douglas Raab, Therese Coffey!) we need a Labour government at the earliest possible opportunity: the government Sir Keir Starmer promised us at Labour’s conference giving us a fairer society founded on a fiscally credible strategy of green investment-led growth.

The one topic on which it is suggested he is vulnerable is Brexit. However, whichever party is in power in Westminster is going to have to repair one way or another the UK’s relationship, broken by a hard Brexit, with the huge market which is the EU. There is one option, that being the creation of an alliance of European countries that intend to remain outwith the EU but wish to benefit from its single market. He is the one we can trust, with confidence, to take on board some such concept, it being out of the question for a Conservative Party so in thrall to ideologically ultra-right-wing think-tanks.

I will not consider voting SNP as long as I am convinced that the government of a newly-independent Scotland will face serious consequences resulting from the implementation of the SNP’s currency proposals in the context of both its intention to rejoin Europe and the size of our deficit: consequences which the financial markets will not tolerate.
John Milne, Uddingston

Who believes FM's nonsense?

AT First Minister's Questions yesterday Nicola Sturgeon insisted that an independent Scotland wishing to join the EU need not join the euro ("Nicola Sturgeon denies lying about joining the euro after independence" heraldscotland, October 27). But the EU itself requires a commitment to join the euro as one of the key criteria for joining the EU. Which means, as far as it is clear, the SNP's policy is now to use the UK pound for an indefinite period of time, then a new Scottish currency for another indefinite period, then pretending to join the euro for a further indefinite time and then adopt the euro sometime, maybe, never.

It doesn't take a genius to see that this is a total political and economic fantasy. It would require Ms Sturgeon to commit to joining the euro without really meaning it and for the EU to swallow this transparent lie and go along with it for the years, maybe decades, it would take to achieve membership. No intelligent person could be taken in by such arrant nonsense and it is incredible that Ms Sturgeon expects the Scottish public to swallow it whole, in part, or indeed at all.
Alex Gallagher, Largs

Shame on SNP for its pettiness

RISHI Sunak and Jeremy Hunt are preparing the public for more misery while they sit comfortably atop their obscene wealth.

The situation is already dire and the new austerity duo are promising it’ll get worse. In England, 27% of NHS hospitals have set up staff food banks. Twelve years of chronic Tory underfunding has left the service broken. The English NHS is no longer a Living Wage employer. Clap for the workers, but don’t pay them enough to live on is the Tory mantra.

Meanwhile, Big Oil rakes in billions in excess profits, while millions buckle under criminally high energy prices.

None of this is necessary. The UK Government could choose to support the population through the current crisis as it did through Covid. Then, it created £300 billion to help people and businesses survive, none of which must be paid back. You wouldn’t know that listening to the corporate media that insists governments are like households. Spoiler alert – they aren’t.

While the UK Government re-imposes Dickensian levels of poverty on Scotland, Ian Blackford led his SNP cohort out of the Commons on Wednesday as Alba MP Kenny MacAskill rose to speak on behalf of Scots being crushed by energy prices. But on his way out Mr Blackford took time to speak to his "good friend" Tory Penny Mordaunt.

Such pettiness betrays the Scottish people.
Leah Gunn Barrett, Edinburgh


Read more letters: Sunak is in no position to lecture us about integrity


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