Fight the Tories, not each other

SO, Labour has once again fallen for the Tories’ ploy of goading them into infighting over the election results. When the Conservatives have bad results you don’t see the chest-beating and apologies they manage to extract from Labour.

Yes, the results were worrying but the priority should now be to calmly and quietly set out a plan for the future.

The sleaze, lies and ineptitude are still there and the Tories still need to be held to account. Concentrate on the good mayoral results and the councils we still have control of and continue to fight for the principles that I and millions of other Labour voters believe in.

Incidentally, ladies like myself don’t vote for women like Angela Rayner because they are northern and single mums. We vote for them because they are intelligent, socially aware, principled people who can use their position to help build a fairer, more equal society.

Labour isn’t dead and buried. It will, with good management, pick itself up to represent and fight for ordinary working people and build a country fit for everyone to

live in.

Margaret Bosson, Rochdale Gtr Manchester

■ Labour’s dire results are a kick in the teeth for ordinary working-class families and show the party’s leadership has lost touch with the needs of ordinary voters. A plan of action is required. After fruitlessly bombarding the Tories on failures going back decades,

they should change tack and make clear to loyal voters what new policies they have to offer. Struggling families aren’t interested in past Tory misdeeds, they need concrete assurances they can have a better future under Labour.

It’s no use attacking Tory policies without having vote-winning viable alternatives. They must make these moves quickly or suffer the consequences of political oblivion.

Neil Atherton, St Helens Merseyside

■ The reasons Labour is in such a mess are two-fold. Firstly, too often they parachute in prospective MPs who have no affinity to the area they represent instead of backing a candidate who lives in the town and knows its people.

Secondly, they and the unions shot themselves in the foot when they backed the wrong Miliband brother – Ed instead of David.

Labour could well have been in charge but for the short-sightedness of the unions. I wish Miliband could be persuaded to take up the reins again because the people of this country badly need a Labour government, especially the less well-off. Brian Scully Wigan

■ I believe Anneliese Dodds’s demotion in Keir Starmer’s reshuffle was unjust. She and Angela Rayner were scapegoated while other frontbenchers have kept their positions, despite being unable to land blows against politically weaker opponents.

This reshuffle was a missed opportunity to build the capable government-in-waiting that Britain desperately needs.

Toby Foster, Rugby, Warks

■ Sorry, Keir Starmer, it’s tragic enough to be humiliated at the polls, without throwing your deputy leader, Angela Rayner, under a bus for your self-made disaster. This so-called leader of principle has lost integrity with this botched reshuffle. By hook or by crook, the charismatic Andy Burnham must be made Labour leader before Britain becomes a permanent one-party state.

Collin Rossini, Dovercourt, Essex

■ Keir Starmer will make a good prime minister if given the chance. Jeremy Corbyn ruined the Labour Party and Covid hasn’t helped them one bit, but now we are coming out of it, people need to give Keir a chance. We need someone like him to make the PM sit up and take notice.

M Ridley, Whitley Bay,

Tyne and Wear