Keir Starmer’s warning of tax rises is probably justified (Starmer hints at tax rises as he warns of ‘painful’ budget, 27 August). But after condemning failures under the Tories, he went on to promulgate a conspiracy theory that is straight out of Daily Mail-land, and echoed years of divisive rhetoric by Tory politicians. Of the rioters, he said “they thought ‘they’ll never arrest me. And if they do, I won’t be prosecuted. And if I am, I won’t get much of a sentence’.” This is a ludicrous assertion, and came without the slightest pretence of offering evidence. If there was any truth in it, it would be a terrifying proposition that a reckless minority was well enough organised to take cynical note of the chaos in the justice system and proceed to riot on the basis of that. The suggestion is poisonous in its invitation to ordinary members of society to fear evil plots by their fellow citizens. Already we are seeing a surge of voices demanding that children should not end up with criminal records, a likely result of Starmer’s populist response to the riots. It looks like more of the same: demonising the poor to cover up government failures, with reckless disregard of the likely social consequences. Jeremy Cushing Wiveliscombe, Somerset It is unfortunate, though doubtless politically expedient, that Keir Starmer blamed the riots on the prison crisis. He could have taken this historic opportunity to blame the decades long and increasingly toxic political discourse on asylum and immigration. He could have blamed racist, far-right organisers. He could have blamed complicit social media platforms and celebrity influencers. His failure to name these elements seems to show a deliberate unwillingness to tackle these issues head-on, leaving the underlying negative narrative around asylum and immigration still firmly in place. Gideon Ben-Tovim University of Liverpool There are clear parallels between Keir Starmer’s rose garden speech and Harold Wilson’s political broadcast, made immediately after he won the October 1974 election. Wilson started by saying that following the Opec oil crisis, the country was facing its gravest crisis since the war. He said that there would be no increases in living standards in the next few years, and gave a thinly disguised warning of very difficult economic decisions to come. This contrasted distinctly with his positive electioneering analysis of the country’s economic problems only a few days earlier. His speech generated anticipation of a much-needed change of direction in economic policy. Yet only a month later, Denis Healey’s budget failed to deliver on these threatened changes. A political opportunity to introduce unpopular, yet necessary, economic policies had been squandered. Two years later, the Labour government was forced to borrow what up to then was the largest ever amount from the International Monetary Fund and have stringent economic policies imposed on it. Thatcher won the following election. Starmer and Rachel Reeves should not flinch from making the right economic decisions. They have time on their hands and the political window to do this. If that means increases to income tax to help rectify our woeful public services, then so be it. Alan Bancroft