Jeremy Corbyn

• IN his anti-Jeremy Corbyn rant in The Evening Standard, Ian Austin MP claims that he’s a social democrat. This is simply not true.

Like Tony Blair he is a neo-liberal. And Corbyn did not betray the principles of the party – it was Blair who did that.

When Austin joined the party it had a purposeful project, which was expressed in Clause IV, on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. This and the spirit of the party were abandoned by “New Labour”.

This country needs radical changes. It needs rent control and public housing, functioning affordable transport, education that puts education before profit, a national apprenticeship scheme.

It needs fair and enforceable tax laws and an end to loan-sharking the poor. It doesn’t need more grubby little wars, it does not need Islamophobia, the active approved racism of our time, and it does not need any more lies about the person who will bring about these changes.

If the word “shameful” is to be used, as it was by The Evening Standard on August 1, it is more appropriately applied to journalists who have joined in the endless attacks on Corbyn.

RD WARREN
NW1