“My instinct is to fix,” Keir Starmer says (Cover Story, 13 June). And maybe, eventually, having shot itself in the foot, Labour will sort out the winter fuel payments fairly. Maybe, eventually, Starmer will lift the two-child benefit cap, fix disability benefits and PIP payments, help the Waspi women, reform social care and establish overseas aid at 0.7 per cent of GDP. All the stuff that directly improves lives costs money today, but Rachel Reeves is only happy to spend it tomorrow.
It all comes back to whether you buy in to Treasury orthodoxy, which, based on neoclassical economics, has delivered poor or no growth. Or the economics of JM Keynes, which during the “golden age” of capitalism worked for the majority. “Anything we can actually do we can afford,” he said in the depths of the Second World War. But now Rachel Reeves says: “If we cannot afford it, we cannot do it,” and she has the purse strings.
David Murray, Wallington
The Statesman, old and new
I have just received my copy of Tom McTague’s first edition of the New Statesman as editor, and am enjoying it. The profile of Keir Starmer is excellent.
My study of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Unceasing War on Poverty, was published last year. In it I emphasise their role as creators of institutions, from the New Statesman andthe LSE to the Fabian Society, and give a full account of the early years of the paper. So I was impressed by the references in the editorial to the paper’s history.
Michael Ward, Arundel
Unorthodox view
Both Anne Applebaum and Maurice Glasman make radical policy suggestions for Keir Starmer (Symposium, 13 June). While Applebaum’s seem more realistic, Glasman makes an important point: that the fiefdom of the Treasury is in need of a radical overhaul. Attempts to abolish or circumvent the Treasury and the OBR rather than reform them only end in tears, but the great enemy of flexibility is orthodoxy.
Felicity McGowan, Cardigan
The real pot hole
As we know, the UK’s prisons are costing us a ludicrously huge sum each year. (Not surprising, perhaps, since we jail a higher proportion of our populace than any other country in western Europe.) The jails are overcrowded, near to bursting, drowning in drugs, and potentially dangerous prisoners are being let out early.
What’s the solution? Well here’s another “Idea for Keir” (Symposium, 13 June), and it’s an absurdly simple one. Just two words, in fact: “Legalise cannabis.”
Philip Kemp, London
Power ratings
An oft-repeated phrase quoted in Lee Siegel’s article (American Affairs, 13 June) about the recent spat between Trump and Musk is that it was between the world’s most powerful man and the richest one. While I would not argue about the latter, I wonder if President Xi might have something to say about the former.
John Palfreyman, Coupar Angus
Tongue twisters
Oh, Mr Marr, you are so right about the prevalent “wooden tongues” of the Prime Minister, his Chancellor et al (Politics, 13 June). But I would add the “forked tongue” behind the U-turn of the winter fuel allowance. Seemingly it is possible now because of the vast improvement of this country’s fiscal fortunes and nothing to do with a frit government, spooked by a resurgent Nigel Farage and Reform UK.
Judith Daniels, Great Yarmouh
Catastrophising
To use Andrew Marr’s phrase in last week’s issue, is the government’s “catastrophic problem” its inability to communicate or is it the severity of its “catastrophic” inheritance from the Tories for which no words, not even “black hole”, are adequate? Or is it possibly both?
Colin Richards, Spark Bridge
Literary fictions
James Marriott seems to have benefited greatly from his English degree, as he writes with passion, clarity and a deft command of textual evidence (The New Society, 13 June). As an English teacher, I feel compelled to observe that he is perhaps a little too metaphorical and hyperbolic, however.
Certainly he does English a grave disservice when he claims that the great mansions of learning have been ransacked and vandalised. It’s true that literary study has lost prestige and funding, and fewer students (especially boys) are signing up across A-level and degree courses. But, despite its reduced circumstances, the subject remains in rude health. If Marriott were to visit the sixth form at which I teach, he would find about one-fifth of our students choose to throw themselves into the business of grappling with Toni Morrison, Alice Munro and John Keats with real gusto. Why? Because their books are as rough-edged, ambiguous and fraught with cultural politics as the world that floods their senses through their screens every day.
In his book, Stefan Collini warns against those who make “loose assumptions” about literary study. I recommend Marriott brush up his close-reading skills and take another look. Collini’s book catalogues what an extraordinarily inventive and fertile field of study English has been to date, and quite clearly refuses to call time on it.
Freddie Baveystock, London
A Bleak outlook
In his review of Literature and Learning by Stefan Collini, James Marriot writes that“the fewer people actually read Charles Dickens and George Eliot, the more their exalted place in the cannon seems like the conspiracy of an establishment minority”.
I have just been rereading Dickens’s Bleak House. In chapter five, some of the main characters go on a morning walk through London where they meet Miss Flite, who suffers from severe mental illness because of the delay and oppression of the law. She keeps caged birds in her room: “I can’t allow them to sing much, for I find my mind confused by the idea that they are singing, while I am following the arguments in court.”
The compassion and moral imagination shown by Dickens and the way in which Miss Flite’s suffering is intimately related to the cruelty and indifference of the legal system remain as relevant, profound and revolutionary now as when Bleak House was written. That we have lost the attention to attend to such riches is tragically true, and we urgently need a rediscovery of the sacred nature of literature.
Revd Ben Brown, Lewes
Terms of abuse
It is good news that Keir Starmer has announced a national inquiry into sex abuse. The evasion of this overdue investigation only handed to the far right, including Elon Musk, the ability to claim a cover-up was in place. However the terms of reference will be crucial, and it would hand the initiative to the hard right if it was confined to immigrant areas. The reality is that major institutions are rife with sex abuse and the lessons of Jimmy Savile’s abusive behaviour have yet to be learned.
However, the most serious abuse is conducted within the churches, including the Church of England. The difference between the senior clergy and other failures of those in authority is their position in parliament. The Bishops Spiritual must now face the music. Lawmakers cannot be law-breakers.
Trevor Fisher, Stafford
A call to alms
I was struck by Will Dunn’s insightful comparison of George Osborne and David Cameron with Thomas Cromwell and Henry Vlll respectively (Cover Story, 16 May). Both political pairings were responsible for the austerity vandalism which wrecked communities. As Dunn points out, the Catholic monasteries provided much-needed “alms, food, shelter, education and medicine” before they were wantonly destroyed. Similarly, from 2010 the welfare state and its associated institutions (schools, libraries, museums, youth clubs, swimming pools, SureStart centres, etc) were systematically dismantled to serve an ideological imperative.
Our local hospital has now taken on the same role as those monasteries. Apart from the warmth, shelter and medicine it offers, it is the one place where anyone, irrespective of race, colour, creed, sex or status, can receive unconditional care, compassion and, dare I say it, love and understanding from dedicated healthcare professionals. But hospitals alone cannot continue do the unconditional heavy lifting that is the responsibility of the welfare state, the wider community and a governing political class.
Paul Grosch, Plymouth
Write to letters@newstatesman.co.uk
We reserve the right to edit letters
[See also: English literature’s last stand]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 18 Jun 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Warlord