Keir Starmer has five years to sell us on having closer EU ties

Keir Starmer is already beginning to disappoint those whose support won him the election – and whose support he still needs.

We all know that the Tories left us in a financial mess and failed for 14 years to grapple with the structural weaknesses, inefficiencies and abuses in the British economy. We knew that whoever won the election, the new government would have to make radical changes and put up taxes.

But his Rose Garden speech this week really must be the last time that he stops playing the old favourites from the election campaign, and move on. (“Has doomster Starmer realised he’s overdone the ‘things can only get worse’ mantra?”, John Rentoul, Wednesday 28 August).

Everyone has got the message now. They need to take the necessary tough measures – but also offer us an unremittingly positive vision for the future. We need that uplift.

The Labour election campaign offered far too many hostages-to-fortune, constraining the new government’s freedom of movement, to coin a phrase.

We know why all of the main parties were terrified of mentioning Brexit during the election campaign. But Starmer and his team now have five years to sell us the benefits of ever-closer cooperation with the EU, wherever the opportunities can be found.

I fail to understand Starmer’s problem with bringing back freedom of movement for under-30s, to enable them to study abroad, to learn about other cultures, to work and perfect their languages? It would breed new generations of voters with a better understanding of why, eventually, we will have to rejoin the EU.

Gavin Turner

Norfolk

One negative aspect of public smoking that is not mentioned often, or strongly enough, is the temptation of recent ex-smokers by the aroma of tobacco.

My father was a lifelong smoker who continually battled to throw off the addiction throughout his later life. Before dying of a smoking-related heart attack in his mid-50s, he often spoke of the cravings driven by encountering the smoke of others both indoors and outside.

An extended ban might just help much more than it harms.

Dr Mark Farrington

Cambridge

As James Moore rightly points out (“Fuel duty is a road to nowhere – it’s time for a pay-as-you-drive tax”, Thursday 29 August), bridges and motorways don’t pay for themselves, and eventually drivers of electric vehicles are going to have to pay their share of the cost.

At the moment, however, the lack of an electric-vehicle equivalent of fuel duty is about the only real enticement for EV ownership – and pay-per-mile would eliminate even that, further setting back progress towards decarbonisation.

We actually need a mix of pay-per-mile (ideally graded according to the damage different vehicles do), as well as a fuel duty – call it a carbon tax – to discourage gas-guzzlers, and wean people off fossil fuels altogether.

Rachael Padman

Suffolk

If Israel has what is often described as “a right to defend itself” by using the lethal weapons supplied by the US and the UK inside Gaza and now the West Bank, then why is Ukraine in its conflict with Russia not also allowed to similarly defend itself by using the same arms supplied to it?

Could it be that we don’t want to provoke Russia? Our support for Ukraine is tainted by our fear of Vladimir Putin.

Geoff Forward

Stirling

Where does the water industry get the brass neck cheek to plead poverty when suggesting that customers swallow an increase of 60 per cent to pay for its financial mismanagement?

If Thames Water had its own way, our utility bill would be (at least) £666 – an ominous number – by 2030.

And what have they done with all our money from the past 30 years? They are in deep financial trouble with a £15bn debt pile. This is a company seriously out of control hoping that the government/Ofwat will obligingly dig them out of this huge hole. 

The current and previous management have been reckless with our money. What was the money spent on? Where is the benefit accrued from the huge debt? How could Ofwat countenance such a huge debt pile?

Thames Water is not alone as many other water companies have huge debt exposure. It seems that collectively they have played fast and loose with our money. Customers ought not to have to pay for their lax management and profligate spending regimes.

Keith Poole                 

Basingstoke