Jon Cruddas [UK Parlt CC By 3.0]

• PERCEPTIVE review by George Binette of Jon Cruddas’s A Century of Labour (Labour intensive, February 2), a reminder that socialists should recapture the values of unity, solidarity and fraternity if they hope to ease the burdens of the six million in “deep poverty in Britain” (Joseph Rowntree Foundation).

John Berger observed that poverty is not the result of natural scarcity, but a set of priorities imposed by the rich. If you don’t tackle this conundrum the only likely uprising, as Victoria Wood quipped, would be if car boot sales and caravanning were banned.

MIKE BOR, W2