Letters to the Editor – week ending 30 August 2026

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

There is a real problem with campaigning for proportional representation. I am certainly in favour of electoral reform. In many parts of the country, a particular party is way above favoured in a particular area and first-past-the-post may mean all the seats in the area are won by that party. This leads to one-party rule and total unaccountability and corruption.

For the GLA elections in London, we have a top-up list and the single transferable vote system. I think that works well and I would like a similar system for general and council elections. But unfortunately there are so many different forms of PR that no one can agree on which system. Political parties will simply want the system which will benefit them the most. Remember we had a referendum on the alternative vote system and Labour and the Tories campaigned against.  I note that the Tories simply abolished STV in London and Labour has reversed that decision. The Tories kept the list system and, to its credit, Labour has not changed it. In Harrow many years ago we had an aldermanic list system that meant that there were some Labour representatives on the council.

I remember in Australia, polls suggested a majority wanted to end the UK monarch being head of state, but voted against it because no one could agree on what the replacement should be.

There are so many different sorts of PR that it is almost impossible to come to a cross-party consensus. I think Labour could just change the system along the lines we already have.

Bill Stephenson

I am personally not happy about private water companies retaining the ownership of the British water in this country. This is not a financial commodity that can be owned by private companies like Thames Water. These private water companies should be held to ransom for abusing the financial control of what is basically a natural resource for not just the public, but also the natural world in terms of aquatic species of wild plants and animals which need fresh unpolluted water to survive.

The problem is that Thames Water have total monopoly over a large area of supplying water to its paying customers they have total autonomy with no competition and they basically are doing exactly what they want and do not have anyone to answer to, not even the elected government.

Susan Ann Mead

With a majority Labour government, there is no constitutional requirement for a mid-term election. As time passes, the lies, bluff, hatred to secure votes and false solutions to the boat crisis and housing crisis will be progressively exposed, and voters will drift away.

Also, full term’s improvement will demonstrate Labour as the party doing maximum good to the majority of working people and with viable plans for improvement.

Unrealistic plans attract votes only on a short term. Labour should continue development plans unabated, expose the futile opposition with time, and hold the next general election in 2029 when it is due.

Basudeb Ghose

Well, Andy Burnham certainly talks the talk, but does he walk the walk? The jury is certainly out on the latter.

Burnham has provided the narrative and communication strategy so sorely lacking during the Starmer years, but what about delivery? Early days, but as everyone sheltered from the heat, Burnham seems set to allow drilling in the North Sea – fiddling while Rome burns hardly covers it.

Water shortages are becoming a daily reality. The private water estate is clearly not fit for purpose. Bosses filling their boots as well as those of shareholders. Hosepipe bans, whilst destructive water-reliant data centres get approval. If ever there was a key sector, where Burnham can roll back 40 years of mismanagement, water is it – yet he seems to have shied away of re-nationalising.

Big ideas on social care, yet no plan seemingly to wrestle the service away from the private sector. No sign either of an economically literate and humane immigration policy. The care sector is one crying out for staff it cannot get due to Shabana Mahmoud’s draconian immigration policies.

If you want growth amid an ageing population, migrant workers have to be allowed in to cover skills gaps and much else. A policy simply based on reducing numbers may please Reform and it’s supporters but it is economically illiterate.

Finally, the way in which the early prison releases program was dealt with smacked of populism, bending to vengeance-based campaigns, amplified by the right-wing media. Releases should be by individual assessment, not according to how many column inches or minutes on the news that victims and their relatives can attain.

There have been positives, such as the moves to address the cost of living crisis and bringing some harmony to the Labour Party.

Early days, but worrying that there is not much sign of real change – a continuation of Reform light policies on immigration and increasingly the environment. But better PR.

Andy Burnham made big promises but now he has to deliver. Just providing better PR will get found out eventually. It is not rolling back the damaging policies of the past 40 years!

So be bold, take water back into public ownership, ban anymore drilling in the North Sea, double down on net zero, bring in a humane and economically literate immigration policy, look seriously at universal basic income and stop pandering to the military industrial complex on defence spending.

Paul Donovan, Wanstead

With a call to implement an arms embargo to help the situation in Gaza to be debated at the Party conference and the need to boost defence spending to help ourselves and Ukraine, isn’t one answer to nationalise the Elbit Systems factories in Bristol and elsewhere, and redirect the arms, in particular drones, for our own use.

Phil Tate, Chester

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