We are not communists, we just want a fairer society

ONCE again, I feel obliged to point out - in this instance to your correspondent, I Banks (Hinckley Times, June 14) - that insult and empty assertion have no place in rational debate; in fact, to use them is to lose the argument immediately.

For I Banks to call Mr Corbyn a “village idiot” is a cheap shot, typical of the worst excesses in the tabloid press, contributing nothing to the political discussion.

One may disagree with Mr Corbyn’s ideas, and if so, one should try to refute them using reasoned argument; to prefer an insult demonstrates rather an inability to use reason.

Likewise, to say that the Labour Party has been “taken over by the communists” is a sweeping assertion for which I Banks produces no evidence.

To use “communist” as an implied insult is also a poor substitute for thought.

Those on the left - a broad spectrum - are sincere in their desire for a fairer society where low pay, poor housing and the underfunding of health and education are things of the past - as was the great post-war hope.

That we are even further away from that kind of society - more than 70 years later - with food banks, homelessness, the NHS crisis, etc, etc - should give people like I Banks food for thought.

The Labour Party has indeed moved to the left. For the sake of the many, it needed to.

That 60% of pensioners still voted Tory, even after Theresa May‘s threat to their wealth, property and income is an astonishing statistic, and shows that Labour has much work to do.

John Payne