Sir, – Anyone concerned about the dangers of the “hard left” to the economy might reflect on the fact the the greatest economic catastrophe of our lifetimes, the banking collapse of 2008, was the direct result result of hard-right, unregulated free-market policies.
That a politician who is actually in favour of not continuing to kill people through resource-grabbing foreign wars, and not impoverishing millions more through increasing inequality, can be considered a radical, is a sign of how inured we have become, in a neoliberal world, to accepting social and political injustice as the inevitable price we have to pay for “the economy”. – Yours, etc,
MAEVE HALPIN,
Dublin 6.
Sir, – Perhaps Martin Cooper, who calls Jeremy Corbyn a "dinosaur" (September 17th), would like to define what he sees as a "credible and reasonable" left-wing force. The most important issue facing the left is inequality. Economic policy must be at the forefront of any attack on inequality.
Mr Corbyn, in addition to leading economists such as Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz, rejects the neoliberal approach which has produced the present situation, describes austerity as ideologically driven and proposes a series of specific policies to tackle the problem. He also opposes weapons of mass destruction as the basis of UK defence policy.
Are those not “credible and reasonable” policies for any left-wing movement? – Yours, etc,
BILL REDMOND
Pontyclun,
Wales.