Letters: Languishing Labour needs new direction

These letters appear in the 16 May edition of The Independent

It would be a sad legacy of the 2015 General Election if the most needy people in our country and the problems they face are abandoned for the “centre ground”.

In 2020 Labour must offer policies that truly help ordinary people. Too many of Ed Miliband’s initiatives – such as tackling rip-off energy prices and controlling rents – looked half-baked and gimmicky, but these are still important areas that need proper policies.

A strong, charismatic leader could also start to shift the public’s opinion on issues like immigration, by confidently pointing out the clear benefits that immigrants bring to our country. It’s also vital to tackle the Daily Mail cartoon version of families on benefits – the figures clearly show that very few have 10 children, and most are in work.

A new leader is a fresh start. It would be a real shame to hear vague waffle about “aspiration” rather than the party tackling the issues that will truly inspire.

Paul Severn
Milton Keynes

Andreas Whittam Smith and Mark Steel (15 May) should be compulsory reading for anyone “aspiring” to become the next leader of the Labour Party.

Labour did not lose in Scotland because of a lack of aspirational policies. It lost because it was beaten, from the left, by a party more closely aligned to the real aspirations of working people than any of the mainstream trio of Labour, Tory and Lib Dem. Labour lost because it became elitist and remote from its core support. It assumed arrogantly and against the growing evidence to the contrary that in its heartland it could count on the core of that support to turn out to the polls as usual. How wrong can a party be!

Until Labour wakes up to reality and makes the necessary changes, it will continue to languish.

Jim White
Alloa, Clackmannanshire

John Humphreys (letters, 13 May) writes that the Labour Party has fought two elections with the wrong leader. Indeed it has, but this is one of the dangers which arises when losing party leaders resign immediately after their defeat: it precipitates a leadership contest for which the parties are never prepared. Labour risks re-running the Conservative’s disaster of 2001 when William Hague resigned the leadership immediately after his defeat, only for the party to saddle itself with Iain Duncan Smith.

Perhaps the greatest service a losing leader can do for his or her party is to stay in post during the period of re-formation. There will not be another General Election for five years – plenty of time for a successor to emerge. And perhaps the passing years would allow the would-be candidates to acquire the charisma which Mr Humphreys expects of a leader.

Anthony Bramley-Harker
Watford

You report (14 May) that, along with Yvette Cooper, “Labour heavyweight” Andy Burnham has launched his bid for the Labour leadership. Is this the same Andy Burnham who as health secretary was accused by victims’ families of ignoring repeated calls to investigate the running of the ill-fated Mid Staffordshire NHS trust?

I wish Labour well in rebuilding but – especially given that its last campaign so deliberately weaponised the future of the NHS – its candidates will need to withstand some pretty searching scrutiny.

Ian Bartlett
East Molesey, Surrey

Jeremy Goldsmith (letter, 13 May) asserts that “throughout its history, the Labour Party’s stars have come from privileged backgrounds”. I think that Aneurin Bevan, Attlee’s health minister, architect of the NHS, and miner’s son, might have taken issue with that sweeping statement.

Jeremy Redman
London SE6

Children stressed out by excessive testing

We read with dismay about the planned changes in education, including the introduction of the baseline test for four-year-olds (report, 13 May). You describe Nicky Morgan as a minister with a reputation for listening. We would urge that she urgently meets with the experts on early years education and teacher representatives to review the wisdom of introducing this measure, against the opinion of the vast majority of the sector.

The BBC this week reported on a new survey by Opinion Matters that showed that during Sats week stress symptoms experienced by 10- and 11-year-olds included smoking, skipping meals, loss of appetite, sleep disturbance and behavioural problems. With our young already the most tested children in the world, these symptoms now threaten to cascade down into early childhood.

Baseline assessment will introduce a culture of testing into the Early Years, entailing a narrowing of the curriculum, anxiety for teachers, pupils and parents, a push to get children “test ready” in nursery and pre-school, and a focus on data rather than the child.

Our campaign to stop baseline testing will continue to escalate, and the US’s mass parent campaign to opt out of high-stakes testing is assuredly the shape of things to come in England.

Tomorrow is National Children’s Day, which we will celebrate with our core message: “Let children play.”

Dr Terry Wrigley
Editor, Improving Schools

Sara Tomlinson, Paula Champion, Louise Regan
Primary Charter steering committee

Dr Simon Boxley
University of Winchester

Erica Evans
Senior lecturer, University of Brighton

Dr Richard House
Educational consultant

Mary Compton
Teacher Solidarity

It is the end of Sats week for 10- and 11-year-olds across England, and my friends and I have seen our children put under significant pressure as their schools try to ensure that they get the best test results on the day, so increasing the schools’ standing in league tables.

Over the past six years our children have studied a wide range of subjects, and engaged in discussion and learning about their role in society – activities that are helping to create confident, creative and rounded young people who can absorb many types of learning and experience. They can also read, write and add up!

Over the past few months this learning has gone, replaced by weeks and weeks of revision of maths and literacy only. They are utterly bored and worn down. I’m sure their teachers are too. But without those improved results their school (which had a good Ofsted report) is potentially under threat of becoming an academy.

Ensuring that children are progressing to an expected level is important, and some external assessment necessary, but Sats results are of no use to children – they already have their secondary school place. The pressure under which they are put is utterly wrong and risks children being worn down by the education system before they even begin secondary school.

Pippa Jones
London W10

The insanity of baseline testing for four-year-olds was explained by the American Longevity Project, 2011, an 80-year study of long-term predictors of health and longevity. It found that starting formal schooling too early may not only lead to problems throughout life but is a predictor of dying at a younger age.

In addition, Sir Michael Wilshaw, in July 2014, bewailed the declining quality of nurseries by comparison with children’s performance as measured in 2008. That was the year in which Early Years Foundation Stage was launched, forcing young children into cognitive work for the first time in educational history.

Grethe Hooper Hansen
Bath

Hunting is not good stewardship

I lived for many years in the countryside and, in my experience, the right to hunt is not “part of a responsible and well-reasoned stewardship” (letter, 13 May). It seems to be carried out mostly by those who use rural England as a play area.

Of the farmers I knew, none were interested, nor had the time, nor would spend money on keeping an expensive horse as a plaything to ride while dressed up in fancy attire.

Hunting is the most inefficient way possible of controlling animal numbers and protecting livestock. It’s just a cruel and silly tradition that some people refuse to let die out.

I have no hatred for the “posh” who hunt and shoot etc; however I do feel that Great Britain will never be a true democracy as long as the hereditary privileges of the monarchy and landed aristocracy persist.

Eric Carpenter
Bath

Non-conformists, watch out

You report that David Cameron has said that Britain is too “passively tolerant” and people should not be left to live their lives as they please as long as they obey the law (report, 13 May).

I shudder to think what intrusions he proposes into the lives of law-abiding citizens but also eagerly await the masterly dissembling “justifying” further authoritarian measures planned against non-conformists.

Eddie Dougall
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk