Letters

Labour has the opportunity to help shape a Budget that could be game-changing while at the same time leading public opinion against a deficit reduction programme that hits, so unfairly, many of the poorest strivers in society.

The budget could become the cornerstone of a new industrial and welfare consensus

The key question for this parliament is how to raise productivity, for it is only by this means that one can securely base real incomes for the vast majority of the population.

There should be no immediate reductions in tax credits to existing claimants but the aim should be to achieve a policy on the Living Wage which, by the end of the Parliament, had delivered real increases in wages for the lowest paid, which would reduce significantly the claim on wage subsidies.

We all have a common-sense understanding of what constitutes being poor: it’s time the government clarified its own view

I am one voter who believes we should attempt to change the face of the EU, that we should seek temporary control of our borders (how can we budget for schools, housing and transport when we don’t know how many millions of people might come here?) while building an outward looking union that sees dismantling our trade barriers as the best means of campaigning against world poverty.

The data that the Office of National Statistics prepared for me suggests that many university graduates would receive much higher pay had they simply taken an apprenticeship route.

There is a moral case against mass immigration in terms of protecting our own country’s poor. This is particularly urgent if we believe that the New Testament is the Gospel for the poor.

If as a country we don’t embrace radical reform to maintain an NHS free at the point of use then we will not recognise what is on offer by 2020, nor given the size of its deficit, will there be a recognisable NHS in the Manchester city region, whether ran by the city region or not.