I’m interested to see just where the Labour Party goes from here

IREFER to recent correspondence in which I was referred to as a ‘closet Tory.’ I am not an easy person to ‘pigeon-hole,’ but rest assured if I am a Tory, I wouldn’t need to be in a closet.

Let’s face it, for seemingly ages there has been no real opposition and I am waiting with interest to see just where the Labour Party goes from here.

We have a Tory Government who have been acting like a nanny state, admittedly partly through necessity, and I don’t agree with recent claims that a majority would support Sir Keir’s view of caution regards Covid as everyone I know has learnt to live with it and is back to something approaching normality, and thank God for that.

We also have a Tory Government which is spending money at a rate that even Jeremy Corbyn would be hard-pressed to surpass. So where does Labour place itself?

I was actually very impressed by the way in which Tony Blair created ‘New Labour’ (wasn’t he called a closet Tory?), and it was a New Labour policy which saved my career. I speak of Connexions – a brilliant mixture of the careers service and youth services which targeted young people in greatest need of guidance while providing universal careers advice in schools, colleges and in Connexions centres. I had 10 great years working in Connexions, from 1999 to 2009, before it was broken up. I thought it was an excellent example of New Labour’s ‘Third Way.’

I’m sure there needs to be a similar service today as our young people are not getting independent careers guidance from qualified advisers, and any political party which revives it would certainly get my vote.

As far as Partygate is concerned, it seems to have been forgotten that Boris was seriously ill with Covid and could easily have died – or, as his father Stanley put it, ‘taken one for the team.’ I thought he was brave to go back to work when he did and I certainly wouldn’t begrudge him a drink or two with colleagues after going through that.

Also, people actually run the country from 10 Downing Street – it’s not exactly Acacia Avenue is it?

I personally do not equate whatever happened there with people not seeing their dying relatives.

Anyway, we’ll see in the next election how the country feels about all this and whether Sir Keir can create a new ‘New Labour.’

D Scadding

Bristol