I am on the brink of quitting Labour – the party has lost its values

So it seems that the Labour conference was intended to administer the last rites to the Corbyn phenomenon. Yet I am aware of many middle-class people in my local (heavily-Tory, rural county) who joined the Labour Party precisely because of Jeremy Corbyn, after he became leader.

Why did we feel motivated by the man? In my case, it was because he stood for values that I hadn’t seen reflected in Westminster for many, many years.

Those values, it seemed to me, spoke of a kinder, fairer society. Would I have minded paying more tax, nationally and locally? No.

Was I looking for a politician that could start undoing the damage done by Thatcherite ideology – the financialisation of our society, the dumbing down of society? Yes.

I am on the brink of quitting the Labour Party. It’s not just because of Keir Starmer – I no longer see the prospect of a clearly values-driven party. Labour is reverting to what it’s most often been in the past – a party driven by bureaucrats.

“You must stay and fight,” I’m told. What for? A closed club of Westminster careerists devoid of the human priorities I believe in. I don’t think so.

Philip Probert

Colwall, Herefordshire

Lord Willetts advises that, because about 50 per cent of student loans are now forgiven and this fraction of the cost of university education is borne by the taxpayer, graduates should start repaying their loans at a level of earnings lower than the current £27k.

But, the corollary of David Willetts’s argument is, self-evidently, that 50 per cent of graduates end up in jobs that do not attract a “graduate premium”. This, in itself, should be ringing alarm bells. It means that either many graduates are undervalued, receiving inadequate remuneration (a feature not untypical of British thinking), or, more likely, universities are taking in far more students than the economy requires.

The nation might also bear in mind that a large fraction of graduates are likely to be dissatisfied with their lot, either wondering why they are paid so little for their work or why they can’t find a job that carries a graduate premium.

Lord Willetts might usefully ponder more than just the burgeoning cost to the Treasury of higher education.

Ian Reid

Kilnwick

Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, says that petrol pumps need not have run dry if lessons had been learnt from the 2012 fuel crisis – then made worse by a Tory minister encouraging motorists to fill up containers with petrol.

Unfortunately, Tory misrule seems certain to continue for some time with Boris Johnson’s boundary review likely to benefit them at the next general election.

Roger Hinds

Surrey

There has been a lot of press coverage of late regarding the EU making a big push for all mobile phones to have a standard charging cable. This is a great idea and no mean feat, with manufacturers already having so many different chargers on the market, but hats off to them for trying.

Can I suggest that the same approach should be adopted with newer products which we all expect to be mass produced in the future. For example, charging cables for electric cars.

Paul Morrison

Glasgow