Labour’s decision on bankers’ bonuses confirms our worst fears

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Keir of the unknown: floating voters might stick with the Tory devil we know (Getty)

John Rentoul’s terse assessment of Labour’s reluctance (nay, refusal) to curb bankers’ bonuses pretty much confirmed the worst fears of many of us who suspected our hopes of a kinder, cleaner, more socially responsible government might be little more than froth on the wind.

Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves don’t appear to be far removed from the lefty end of the Tory party, and if that continues to be the case they’ll find those of us teetering on the middle ground will stick with the Tory devil they know.

Starmer needs to give those “lost” undecided voters a reason to switch to the high moral ground, but frankly, with mealy-mouthed attitudes like this, they’re not giving us any confidence that much would change when Starmer’s Labour boards the gravy train.

Steve Mackinder

Denver

Heard that one before

The shameful decision of the Labour Party to announce they have changed their mind about capping bankers’ bonuses tells you everything you need to know about their priorities if they win power.

Geoff Forward

Stirling

Checkmate is just a matter of time

No wonder Jeremy Hunt doesn’t know whether or not to cut taxes.

On one wing of the Conservative Party, the chancellor has the likes of David Davis telling him to tell the IMF to get lost, and on the other, more liberal side of his party, people like Steve Brine and Alok Sharma know exactly what’s going on.

They know the game is up and checkmate is just a matter of time.

Hence Hunt knows full well that, with a cost of living crisis gripping poorer households more than ever and councils like Hampshire already £132m in debt, there is a gaping black hole set to suck up whoever is chancellor, certainly by January 2025.

But do right-wing sect supporters like Jacob Rees-Mogg and Suella Braverman care about that?

Of course they don’t. They were the architects of Boris Johnon’s big plan. Not to get Brexit done, but to look after the top 1 per cent at the expense of the rest.

Geoffrey Brooking

Havant

Virtue of neglect

I have been struck by the general absence of discussion in the media of the Tory-instituted “care in the community” policy and its relevance to the Valdo Calocane killings.

That policy formalises and pretends to make a virtue of neglect – leading, predictably, to the situation we now have: where the deranged have to commit a crime before attention is paid to them.

Calocane’s killings are by no means the only paranoid schizophrenia-related deaths we have seen in recent years, and his condition was known about beforehand. Why is care in the community not under scrutiny?

Dr Stephen Riley Bruton

Bruton