New Statesman: Letter of the week

I am astonished at the recommendation, in an NS guide to "tactical voting" compiled by Peter Wilby ("How to give Blair a bloody nose", 11 April), that voters should still ensure the re-election of a new Labour government. Minimal conditions for a government are that it uphold (and obey) the law and the rule of law (including, since the mid-19th century, human rights); that it defend the people of the country (including avoiding illegal, aggressive wars which might provoke enraged retaliation); and that it not make its citizens ashamed to be associated with its policies. Only when these conditions are satisfied can we discuss its record on the economy, equality and so on. Those who still rest their hopes in Labour should note that five-sixths of the votes at its party conference went against withdrawing our forces from Iraq.

The Conservatives, in all essentials, would have failed the above conditions in the same way as new Labour has. So the choice is between voting for a minor party, or spoiling one's vote in protest at the way the British constitution currently allows the subversion of democracy. If you think a vote for a minor party is a wasted vote, ask yourself what the chances are that victory in your own constituency will be determined by a single vote. In that sense, all votes are wasted votes.

Basil O'Neill

Wormit, Fife

Your article on "how to give Blair a bloody nose" is possibly the most self-serving and trite piece of obnoxious, middle-class puffery I have read in a long time. Having grown up in the Thatcher years with both parents unemployed, I find it insulting in the extreme to working-class people. This is not a game. You may be well enough situated if the Tories sneak in, as a result of apathy and this sort of election-gaming, but millions of others are not, and cannot afford your smart-ass gambling.

Andrew Clark

Arbroath, Angus

Your list of MPs and candidates "to vote out" labels Katy Clark, the Labour candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, as a "Blairite". Clark has stood second to none in her opposition to war in Iraq, identity cards and NHS privatisation. Her record in defending employment rights and pensions is outstanding. Those who believe that Labour's role is to protect the poor, the old, the sick and the oppressed should vote for her. She will do far more than the Scottish National Party ever will to hold Tony Blair to account.

Gordon McKay

Kilbirnie, North Ayrshire

You suggest that, as a Labour voter who opposed the Iraq war, I should vote for my Liberal Democrat MP in Leicester South following his victory at the by-election last year. I have no intention of doing so. The local Labour candidate has always been against the war, as was our previous Labour MP. The Lib Dem group on the council, of which our MP is a member, was recently in coalition with the Conservatives. They made cuts in the voluntary sector and mismanaged the city's regeneration strategy.

Rebecca Linton

Leicester

After a freezing, snowy (yes, snowy!) day leafleting and talking to pensioners on an estate in Hull North, I discovered that a bunch of over-lunched hacks had decided to include our candidate--Diana Johnson--on their infantile list of MPs to be booted out in order to "give Blair a bloody nose". You say that she and other candidates, "as far as we can discover, have no recent record of anti-Blairism" (whatever that might mean: a desire to see the minimum wage revoked, perhaps?). Johnson is not a "Blairite barrister", but a committed Labour candidate who represents Hull's first chance to return a female MP. As Robin Cook has pointed out, whatever the outcome of 5 May, Tony Blair will do very well. His constituents may not. Those who receive the "bloody nose" will be hard-pressed pensioners, single parents, Sure Start programmes, third world countries hoping for debt relief, and so on. So thank you for your help. Our volunteers will now have to work extra hard to undo the harm your list has done.

Matthew Bailey

Hull

Constituents like mine are just beginning to see the fruits of the regenerative effort Labour has made to repair 18 years of Thatcherite social vandalism in these former mining communities. If you want to give Blair a bloody nose, go graft for a leadership alternative. Just don't crap on my constituents.

Huw Lewis

AM, Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney National Assembly for Wales

A coherent tactical voting guide based on opposition to the war should take as its starting point that there should be a Labour vote in constituencies where Labour can win and the candidate was firmly opposed to the war. I hope, therefore, that the NS will in future back my campaign to win back Brent East.

Yasmin Qureshi

Labour candidate, Brent East

As a long-term Labour supporter, I applaud your listing of Labour MPs we should vote against. This pruning is good for the future of the party. But why have you not included Nigel Griffiths, a junior minister at the Department of Trade and Industry? He backed the war, defending the use of depleted uranium in civilian areas, and the most extreme versions of the Terrorism Bill. He has a horrible record at the DTI of sanctioning the sale of weapons to totalitarian regimes, in contravention of international and Foreign Office codes. He claims to be a Brownite, but his support of Blairism has been slavish and sycophantic.

Geoff Sim

Edinburgh South constituent

Your guide is dominated by bourgeois psephology. Why no mention of Bethnal Green, where Respect's George Galloway stands every chance of unseating the Blairite Oona King? Or of Hornsey and Wood Green where, as Tariq Ali has pointed out, Barbara Roche is under serious threat from the Lib Dems?

Keith Flett

London N17

It's always nice when people say thank you, but I could have done without being thanked for "assistance" in compiling your guide to tactical voting. I'm quite happy to provide lists of how MPs voted on different things--it's what we set www.revolts.co.uk up for--but I neither had nor wanted any part in choosing your bizarre selection of MPs to target. Just for the record (and to stop my friends sending me rude e-mails), I think the whole exercise is a form of electoral onanism. If it gives you pleasure, go ahead. But it is ultimately unsatisfying.

Philip Cowley

University of Nottingham

Like most journalists, I am not prone to declining a byline. Still, I was somewhat surprised at my inadvertent inclusion in the NS guide last week after providing clarification on a couple of research points. For all my criticisms of the Iraq war, I don't believe that tactical voting to shrink Labour's majority provides the answers, particularly as several names included in the list are people I respect.

John Kampfner

London WC1

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