Forced Labour
Sir: Matthew Parris wonders ‘Why was everyone fooled by Rachel Reeves?’(18 January) and goes on to include Sir Keir Starmer in this question. The former he concludes is ‘an empty vessel’ and the latter ‘bereft of ideas’. By ‘everyone’ he chiefly means the commentariat, although he claims he was not himself misled.
They and many others were fed up with the failure of successive Conservative governments, and wanted so badly to believe in Labour’s ability to form an effective administration that they never seriously applied due diligence by questioning its credibility or competences. At no stage were any stones lifted to determine what ‘nasties’ lay underneath. As a result, we are now beginning to see how many worms there really are and how short-changed much of the electorate feels.
The jury is still out, however, on an even more critical issue. Are the events, for which Parris is now effectively apologising on behalf of his colleagues, the result of their failure to do their job properly, or the consequence of a calculated deception deliberately practised by the Labour party as a form of ‘entryism’ to ensure the election of a government far more radical and left-wing than the British people would ever have voted for? I fear the worst on this, but hope for the best. Only time will tell.
Richard Longfield
Weston Patrick, Hampshire
Nasty party
Sir: Matthew Parris makes a good case against the commentariat for failing to recognise the policy vacuum at the heart of the Starmer/Reeves bid for government. Voters were more perceptive, which is surely why only a third of them supported Labour. There was one clear sign of the nastiness to come: the commitment to attack private education. But the Tories made little of it. If only Rachel Reeves’s interview on Political Thinking had been before the election. Then her boasting to Nick Robinson that she was the new Margaret Thatcher might have prompted Conservative stay-at-homes to skip to the polling booths to vote Tory, laughing all the way.
John Hicks
Manchester
Diocese and desist
Sir: The erudite ‘Mind your language’ column (11 January) discussed the etymology of ‘minster’ – a venerable word describing the Anglo-Saxon monasteries from which clergy went out to serve scattered homesteads. As Dot Wordsworth shrewdly observed, Leicester diocese is distorting ‘minster community’ to cover the dearth of local care and clergy in its pastoral ‘reorganisation’: whereby, for example, one paid ‘oversight minister’ will ‘care’ for 23 parishes and 34 churches in Leicester’s Launde deanery from July. This strategy is less ‘shaped by God’, more by a centralised bureaucracy hacking at its own front line.
Ironically, on the same page, your wine correspondent notes increased numbers of acquaintances attending church. In dioceses which pursue policies like Leicester’s, they may soon struggle to find a church to attend. Save the Parish is working tirelessly to champion the social, spiritual and economic value of local provision. May I urge all Anglican readers to ‘mind the language’ in diocesan documents.
Revd Canon Professor Alison Milbank
Canon Theologian of Southwell Minster
Southwell, Nottinghamshire
Lost youth
Sir: Simon Heffer’s interesting article on Kemi Badenoch strikes too much of an optimistic tone (‘Iron will’, 11 January). Electorally, Kemi’s problem is that young people are flocking to Reform, evidenced by the recent election where more 18- to 29-year-olds voted for Reform than for the Tories. Only 13 per cent of students voted for the two right-leaning parties.
When young people become disillusioned by the Labour government – a likelihood at this rate – they will switch to the Reform option. Young aspiring entrepreneurs are baffled by the high-tax Tories and this punitive Labour government. The Tories have to radically think how they can persuade young people, and in particular the graduate class which they perform so poorly with, that their brand of conservatism will benefit them. As someone young, a common theme of concern at university is the high taxes that are required to fund inefficient public sector areas. As we young turn a blind eye to the Tories, things are looking increasingly difficult for Kemi.
Henry Bateson
Whittingham, Northumberland
Breadwinning ways
Sir: It would be juvenile of me to take issue with my husband’s assumption that I have a special feeling for picking up dirty pants and to add detail to his confession that he pulled only some of his weight in the upbringing of our children, but I would like to respond to his article (‘A real keeper’, 18 January) more generally. I agree with him that in many ways we are a traditional couple with a few testing modern aberrations that have been more or less accidental. I also agree that apart from the mental load, I have carried most of the weight of the innovation.
It has been a delicate balance. I have only rarely raged King Kong-like around the house asserting the raw power of my financial superiority, and mostly ensured that the roaring and chest-beating has happened in private. I think our situation has had some beneficial effects: apart from enforcing gender equality it has also meant that we have had reason to restrict conspicuous consumption, which can only be a good thing. We have stood up to the soul-mashing logic of capitalism and refused to let money masculate me or emasculate him.
Of course the whole ghastly situation has been greatly helped by the fact that we love each other.
Tess Wicksteed
Wife and proud patron of Theo Hobson
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