Labour, Libdems should get together

GROSS inequality being for me a critical issue, I ask myself: which political philosophy is most likely capable of rising to the challenge of poverty? I believe that neither Johnsonian Anglo-british nor Scottish nationalism is capable of doing so. However having rejected, hopefully, both nationalisms, the electorate has still to choose between liberal/ social democratic and neo-liberal unionism, the proper choice to me being obvious.

Both the Labour and Liberal Democratic party 2021 manifestos have at their core compassion and justice. Scottish Labour’s National Recovery Plan expresses an intention to make “every community in Scotland a place where people can safely grow up, settle and work, with access to public services and free from poverty and hunger”.

I agree with the suggestion from Scottish Libdem leadership candidate Alex Cole-hamilton that the two parties form a “progressive alternative” to both a failing SNP and to a Conservative Party in thrall to a doctrine of (crony-based) privatisation (“Libdem leadership candidate opens door to Labour coalition”, The Herald, July 29). This doctrine proved itself incapable of dealing effectively with Covid and will be even more tragically ineffective when coping with global warming and ecosystems loss.

In contrast to this self-serving Conservative dogma, 88 world leaders have now signed The Pledge for Nature (2020) which calls for the “transformation and reformation” of our economic and financial sectors in order to avoid “irreversible harm to our life support systems” and to avoid further growth in “poverty and inequalities as well as hunger and malnutrition”.

John Milne, Uddingston.