Labour can be proud of its local election results, but there’s still a way to go

Keir Starmer’s party has not only, as Jonathan Freedland says, sought “to reassure Tory switchers” that they have nothing to worry about, in doing so it has remoulded itself into a centre-right conservative Labour party, with policies so moderate that they’re in danger of Tory adoption prior to the election (Triumphant Starmer already seems like the prime minister. Now his troubles really begin, 3 May). Like the effect of Joe Biden’s weak stance over Gaza, the real danger is that many voters will “cast their ballots for alternatives to Sir Keir” (The Guardian view on local elections: voters aren’t listening to Tories, but are hearing Labour, 3 May).

Does Freedland seriously believe that if the Gaza situation is “sufficiently calmed” come election day, voters are so fickle that they will have forgotten Starmer’s refusal to support an immediate ceasefire, or his hesitation about whether Israel has the right to withhold power and water from Gaza?

He also says that “there is not enough money” for a Labour government to fix what the Tories have spent 14 years breaking, when Starmer and Rachel Reeves have refused all advice to tax wealth and its owners fairly, equalise capital gains and income tax, impose windfall taxes on all profiteering companies, and close the tax gap completely rather than by a meagre £5bn in five years. Too right they will be “cut little slack”, and quite rightly, too. If the problems facing the next Labour government “could hardly be more daunting”, it is of their own making: the country is ready for and needs transformative policies, not simply a change in the holder of the keys to No 10.
Bernie Evans
Liverpool

• A “receptacle strategy” is all very well as long as your receptacle is free of holes. The gaping hole at the heart of Labour’s bucket is the lack of any vision for the future. The party has done very well thus far by not being the Conservatives. But without offering a benighted electorate some hope, how much further can it go? The political scientist John Curtice rightly refused to get too excited about these results, and one news outlet pointed out that if the percentages at the local elections were to be repeated at the general election, we’re looking at a hung parliament.

As a progressive I would welcome that. This country needs radical democratic and economic reform, and a hung parliament would be an opportunity to bring proportional representation front and centre. This would open the door to other much-needed reforms and a new politics of debate and consensus-building rather than the tawdry mud-slinging that currently passes for it.
Lyn Dade
Twickenham, London

• Historically, Labour has been a broad church uniting a range of left-of-centre opinion to win elections in a first-past-the-post system. Keir Starmer has taken a narrower approach. While that did bring electoral success on 2 May, it also led to significant losses to independent and Green candidates on issues such as Gaza and the climate crisis.

If Labour is to win a victory at this year’s general election, Starmer urgently needs to resume services at the broad church.
Keith Flett
Tottenham, London

• On receiving pre-election literature on the London mayoral election, it was noticeable that the leaflet from Susan Hall did not contain the word “Conservative” or “Tory” or any logo or other clue as to which party she was representing. I also received a leaflet from the Tory member of parliament for Uxbridge, also devoid of obvious party identification, blatantly urging voters to vote for anyone apart from Sadiq Khan. Are the Tories so ashamed of their party’s record that they cannot even bring themselves to identify with them?
Jimmy McCluskey
Enfield, London

• If the word “disappointing” is the one Rishi Sunak chooses to describe the local election results for the Tories, I think he’ll need a thesaurus after the general election.
Dr Mark Wilcox
Holmfirth, West Yorkshire

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