Socialism killing Labour

I have been lucky in the heroes I adopted. To name a few, my father was a real miner (as opposed to all those politically-motivated trade union leaders who destroyed our industry) and thus trained me to be reasonably good at my chosen trade.

In Clem attlee and Mrs Thatcher, I still can celebrate the sort of politicians who actually believed in what they were saying. attlee’s approach turned out to be disastrously wrong, but policies such as wholesale nationalisation were, at the time, worthwhile and constructive measures after the horrors and deprivation Britain experienced before and during the war.

It’s a sad but solid fact that socialism is simply not in tune with human nature but that should never mean the end of Britain’s Labour Party.

If the party had copied the German Social Democrats in abandoning socialism (in 1959), then who can doubt that Labour governments thereafter would have achieved so much more in making Britain more prosperous and secure than it is today.

Instead, we have seen a continuing cycle of Conservative governments having to avert financial crises caused by Labour’s economic blunders.

So I for one hope for a reconstructed Labour Party that will be able to demonstrate the essential element of principled decency we saw during the attlee era.

There should be no place in any decent society for the sort of ruthless fanaticism demonstrated by the environmental or nationalist brand of ‘leftie’. Whatever our political leanings, let’s get back to the days of mutual respect for differing opinions.

Jim Parker, Glenrothes, Fife.