Saying Jeremy Corbyn cannot win for Labour is a self-fulfilling prophecy

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Jeremy Corbyn is facing a challenge for the Labour leadership from Welsh MP Owen Smith (Getty)

By saying Jeremy Corbyn cannot win an election, senior Labour figures are engineering a self-fulfilling prophecy – and they have been doing so since the day he was elected leader. The latest one to add his poisonous two pennyworth is London Mayor Sadiq Khan. When boasting of his own success in the mayoral election, and comparing this with Corbyn’s current low poll ratings, Khan conveniently forgets that he does not have the disadvantage of numerous members of his own party repeatedly stabbing him in the back. Corbyn’s own party has rubbished him repeatedly and declared him a failure, and the media has sneered at him at every opportunity. I would have liked to be allowed to make up my own mind about him without all this vituperative stuff obscuring the facts. One thing is quite clear: Corbyn is the victim of bullying, and bullies are not attractive people.

Penny Little
Great Haseley, Oxfordshire

I see Sadiq Khan, has come out in support of Owen Smith. He states that the British public has no trust in Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn regularly pulls large crowds at meetings while Owen barely musters a trio of people. Corbyn was voted Leader by a majority of Labour voters and all the rest of the party can do is try to manipulate guidelines as to who can and can't vote in this leadership election. John Smith must be turning in his grave looking at what’s become of the Labour Party since his death.

Richard Kimble
Hawksworth

Cameron’s limp legacy

Oh, John Rentoul. Always interesting, always challenging. He says that David Cameron “did a lot of good things ... such as equal marriage”. Well, yes. About time someone did. He goes on to say “it is hard to dislike someone who calls the Mail on Sunday “the Hate on Sunday”. It really is not, actually, if you balance a slightly amusing phrase against the broken promises regarding protecting the environment, the NHS, society itself and refugees.

As for a volunteering scheme for teenagers, there have always been such schemes, often run by schools keen to give their pupils extra-curricular experiences and to give them something to put on their nascent CVs. Of this hardly innovative volunteering scheme, Rentoul suggests: “It is the kind of Majorish policy upon which we might look back in 22 years’ time and say: he was a better Prime Minister than we thought.”

I suggest Dave will be regarded as a Prime Minister who was lucky to have had little opposition and who, to his good fortune yet to his country’s detriment, persuaded Nick Clegg that a coalition government would be a good thing. Not a better Prime Minister than we thought; just a lucky one, who will in time be seen to have been a worse one than current commentary has depicted.

I think, on balance, I'm happier with Rentoul defending Blair – though I will rail against that too.

Beryl Wall
Chiswick

Apart from the outrage about his holiday shorts, have you noticed how the likes of David Cameron and George Osborne have all but slipped from our lives and consciousness? People remember nurses, doctors, good teachers and good neighbours that have had a positive input into our lives, but almost uniformly politicians are only remembered for the bad things they do. Tony Blair for Iraq; Margaret Thatcher for the miners’ strike, or for winning an unnecessary war with Argentina. It shows how utterly transient they are, despite thinking they’re something special over the rest of us, who they refer to as “ordinary people”. I remember all the names of teachers at the grammar school I went to back in the Sixties and early Seventies, but I couldn't tell you the name of Derby's MP at the time.

Terry Maunder
Kirkstall

Should Olympic success rely on gambling?

A substantial amount of UK sport funding comes from the National Lottery. There is no reason why leaving the EU would affect this contribution. Tom Peck states that Camelot has raised the price of a lottery ticket to £2.50. This price rise only affects the euro draw, and in fact has not yet been implemented. When the price of a regular Lotto ticket increased a couple of years ago, it had no negative impact upon sales. A far more important question for me is the ethics behind some of our poorest people in society being encouraged to gamble money they don't have to help fund elite athletes, many of whom came from a privileged backgrounds in the first place. I am a proud patriot and, as an internationalist pro-Remainer, I have very much enjoyed seeing our Olympic success. But we must address the levels of casual gambling, and the damage it does in UK society.

James Shepherd
Lincolnshire

Seeing today's usual downbeat headline, this time concerning the Olympics and Brexit, it occurred to me that "The Despondent" would be a more accurate title for your newspaper.

Bruce Payne
Taunton

The quiet man is back

I see that Iain Duncan Smith has returned to the fray, as self-appointed guardian of Brexit. Writing in the Sun on Sunday, he is calling for us to leave the EU as soon as possible. As a leading supporter of Andrea Leadsom’s campaign to be our next Prime Minister, he, more than most, deserves recognition. But perhaps not the kind he expects. Rather than hanging on his every word, we should perhaps present him with the David Cameron Prize for Political Recklessness, surely a virtual award worthy of an annual competition.

Cameron, of course, mishandled the Scottish independence referendum and then, in a tour de force, lost the EU one, teeing up “IndyRef Two” at a time of SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon’s choosing.

IDS deserves equal recognition for his failure to provide a much needed viable opposition as Tory leader, poor and stubborn leadership at the Department for Work and Pensions and damaging contributions to the EU debate over decades, ending with the referendum. But that victory has clearly brought IDS little joy and he continues to agitate. Perhaps a period of silence and reflection on his part would be better for everyone.

John Gemmell
Great Barr

“For too long membership of the EU sapped our sense of self-worth and our self-confidence. Now we have the chance to believe in Britain again.” So says the failed, embittered former Conservative party leader, Iain Duncan Smith. I, for one, am appalled by his reactionary, populist rhetoric, believing that Britain's self-worth was enhanced, socially and morally, by being part of something more noble and more grand than “little Britain” could ever aspire to.

Currently visiting friends and relatives in Australia, all of whom share my dismay at this British “own goal ” of monumental selfishness and stupidity, I fear for the future of generations who will have to bear the burden handed to it by the elderly, uneducated demographic who forced the “tyranny of the majority” onto those of us who continue to uphold civilised, liberal, tolerant values. Long may the legal and other challenges delay this appalling decision.

Katherine Scholfield
London W8

Is Brexit beginning to sound like “the cheque’s in the post?'” Perhaps the strategy is that the longer we Remain, the less attractive it is to Leave? I’m not questioning the Prime Minister’s sincerity, but the heart, however, may be questionable. Or could it be that Team Brexit has not got a coherent clue as to what to do?

Collin Rossini
Dovercourt, Essex

New rules for dangerous dogs

In the light of the distressing dog attack here in Halstead last week, it is time to look at the way pet owners and their animals are treated by law, and ask whether it serves both the interests of humans and our other species friends. We suggest the state should take over the role of pet insurance, in order that it could be cheaper but compulsory, so that every animal is insured against both accident and illness, and also civil liability arising from animals out of control.

Having every animal with NHS-style access to vets would also allow for greater experimental medical practices to be used on unwell, as opposed to healthy, animals, which would potentially eliminate the need for the cruel option of vivisection. Such a scheme could involve an annual inspection of a household's animals, to assess their welfare. Anyone with animals will know that they are not objects but “people” and, as such, a civilised society should afford them similar rights to us.

AR and KA Wainwright
Halstead, Essex

Following the tragic death of Dexter Neal, I can only hope that the ignorance about the Dangerous Dogs Act displayed by MP Andrew Rosindell is not reflected in our law enforcement authorities. The Dangerous Dogs Act does not only cover banned breeds of dog but also covers (in section three) the behaviour of any breed of dog, specifically regarding the offence of it being “dangerously out of control”. Mr Rosindell needs to enhance is knowledge and ensure the law as it already exists is enforced properly.

Laurence Williams
South Cockerington, Lincolnshire