Sir, – I suspect that Labour in Britain is going through the sort of crisis that the Tories went through comparatively recently. This may mean getting through quite a few leaders as the Tories once did (William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard) before choosing one, David Cameron, who, for all his faults, voters thought electable. Add to that the task any incoming Labour leader has of divesting the party of its deeply entrenched Momentum zealots, who prefer ideological purity to actual power, and the job of Labour leader is something of a poisoned chalice. – Yours, etc,
MARY BYRNE,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.
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Sir, – It's good news for Labour that Keir Starmer clearly leads a YouGov poll of who party members want as their next leader ("Keir Starmer tops leadership poll of Labour Party members", News, January 2nd).
Supporters of the shadow Brexit secretary rightly think his record as a former director of public prosecutions gives him a weight his rivals lack.
Mr Starmer calls himself “a socialist” and has the pragmatism to keep Labour authentically on the left.
But he also has the gravitas to expose systematically a Tory party that has fatally slipped its traditional moorings by, for instance, betraying its status as the Conservative and Unionist party by agreeing to a border in the Irish Sea.
With Mr Starmer as its next leader, Labour can soon establish itself as a government in waiting. – Yours, etc,
JOE McCARTHY,
Arbour Hill,
Dublin 7.