Letters to the Editor – week ending 11 January 2026

Read what people have been writing to our editor about this week. Find out how to share your own views here.

International Affurs…

Regarding your article ‘Our world-leading Animal Welfare Strategy will protect domestic, farmed and wild animals for generations’ (22/12/25) we welcome the Government’s ambition to improve the lives of millions of animals, including its commitment to tackling the UK’s cruel fur trade.

 More than three-quarters of the public and over 200 MPs support a ban on fur imports. Yet this progress could be quietly jeopardised by negotiations over trade alignment with the EU that could tie the UK’s hands and keep cruel products, like fur, on our shelves.

 We urge Nick Thomas-Symonds and his team to make animal welfare a foundation of the UK-EU trade talks, not a casualty of them. 

Claire Bass
Senior Director Campaigns and Public Affairs,
Humane World for Animals | UK formerly Humane Society International UK

*****

International law and Venezuela

There are two possible responses to Kofi Annan’s accurate observation in 1999 that international law wasn’t fit for purpose in the modern world. The first is, as Kofi no doubt intended, to redouble efforts to ensure that international law can both function and is respected. 

The alternative, as Luke Akehurst seems to be suggesting, is to follow Trump in throwing it into the dustbin of history. I am sure, given his views on Palestine and Israel, that he has good reasons for going down this route. But I do not think that a world without international law is one which a small country like the United Kingdom, which disproportionately benefits from the structures of international law as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has any interest in.

Akehurst correctly points out that 65 countries have recognised the opposition as winners of the Venezuelan election in 2024. What he doesn’t point out is that that logically means that 128 countries have not, a few more than the four he mentions. The Venezuelan government remains, legally, the representative of Venezuela at the United Nations which, at the very least, questions the legality of the US kidnap operation. 

Interesting too that he doesn’t mention the continuing US operations, aided and abetted by the UK government, to impound oil tankers on the high seas. Perhaps this is because he would struggle to justify actions that the BBC’s international editor, Jeremy Bowen, has recently compared to 19th century imperialism. 

I, like most of your readers, will shed no tears for Maduro, but I am crying at the willingness of a Labour MP to throw out the post World War 2 legal order in the interests of maintaining a transatlantic relationship with a far right President. One would have thought that we had learnt that lesson from Iraq.

Patrick Costello
Brussels Labour

*****

This land is our land…

The root cause of homes being unaffordable to rent (or buy) is the cost of land which is seen as something to “invest” in rather than what it is – a natural resource nature provides at no cost of production. Such “investment” is actually land speculation and encourages greed and selfishness by a few.

To have really affordable homes, politicians, economists and campaigns fighting for a fair society must first recognise that homes will continue to be unaffordable to rent or buy for a growing number of folk unless the economic rent of land is diverted back to those who create it – i.e. the whole of society and not to those claiming ownership of it.

Every time a Mansion Tax or Land Value Tax or Council Tax reform is suggested, we hear cries of woe from home owners. But what about those who don’t own their home?

Home prices are high in areas of high demand but a considerable part of the price of such a home is actually land (location) value. That land value arises solely from the whole of society’s demand to use it for homes, businesses, public services, infrastructure, transport networks etc and NOT from owning it.

Those who own land (a NATURAL resource) get something for nothing when land prices rise, but as land prices rise, so rents rise for domestic and commercial tenants. Tenants, homeless people and those adults forced economically to live with family get nothing. This is not fair.

Question: So where is the share of land wealth that tenants and those living with family equally create as taxpayers and consumers going?

Answer: It goes to owners of land!!!

If the government replaced just property taxes with an annual Land Value Tax, every person and business would get a fairer share of the unearned wealth they create – THAT SOUNDS FAIR and REASONABLE. Land speculation would cease; idle development sites would be brought into their full permitted use and there would be less pressure to build on green land.

We would all gain – socially, economically and environmentally.

Yours sincerely

Heather Wetzel
Vice Chair
Labour Land Campaign

*****

Retail politics

Would fellow Labour members agree that our current Labour government can unfortunately be compared with a failing retail business? Labour dominated the UK popular market in July 2024 BUT By January 2026 its “market ” share has almost halved.

Why has Labour’s “business” appeal to the public collapsed at present?

Why have competitors increased their market share so quickly so that newcomer Reform has really overtaken Labour in the popular market polls – and the Greens have almost caught up?

Did Labour promise too much, too soon to a very expectant “retail market “who have lost faith in the ability of Labour’s business to deliver? Do the customers recognise Labour’s “brand” and its major product range?

Why are Labour’s CEO Keir Starmer and Finance Director Rachel Reeves so unpopular among the customers in the market? How, when and where can Labour recover major market share across the UK? Early bad impressions can be lasting impressions.

If not, should one or both be replaced, and if so, by whom, when and how?

Personally I can’t see how Labour can go into the next major “market” assessment in 2029 with Keir as CEO and Rachel ought to resign if the May 2026 review is as negative as projected.

Labour party members, as shareholders  and often “sales ” staff must have a real say, the sooner the better, on the present and future of our “business ” – over to you 

Name and address supplied

*****

No longer a member of the Labour Party (expelled for something I could not have done) but I am still desperate to make sure that left of centre policies are continually adopted in Britain.

It amazes me that so many current party members, councillors and worst of all MPs are constantly so out of focus with what must be the clear priority of those on the left of British politics, which is to do everything positive to make certain that the Party is electable and elected for at least a second term!

I wish those in power would put their petty little egos to one side, and concentrate on the main goal – changing Britain from a country for the greedy few to a country working for and controlled by the many.

Solidarity

Pat Ratcliffe

*****

Dear Editor, 

One would imagine that in a democracy everyone would be able to vote for the party or candidate they actually supported. Under “First past the Post” for millions this is impractical and wasted vote.

The present fragmentation of party support would make a FPTP election a nerve wracking lottery where tiny margins could decide the outcome. The awful risk to democracy of a Reform victory means Labour, in the national interest, must put aside the illusory idea that FPTP will still favour the party come the election. 

The prospect of any party getting an overall majority is low under whichever system and coalition government is the likely, and more representative outcome.           

Yours, 

Hugh Legge
Northampton
(Until recently a Labour member)

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