Sir, - Dr Pat Upton TD (November 17th) ridicules Michael Laver's assertion that the Labour Party should go left and "back to its roots". He instances as an awful warning its British opposite number's overwhelming defeat in 1983 with a traditionalist programme. He ignores (as British Labour's self-styled modernisers ignore) the other facts contributing to the disaster: the facts that Labour had suffered a major split and that the Tory government was riding high on post-Falklands War euphoria.
In place of socialism, Dr Upton advocates "the importance of community, the common good, and the obligation of one member of society to the other across all classes". The first two of these mean socialism (if taken seriously, that is); the third is gobbledegook. Classes have different interests and their members tend to see their own aims as benefiting those outside their group.
There are times when a politician has to choose between class interests. In such cases, the property owners are in a strong position and the more property they own, the stronger they are. So far, no one has produced a better means of seeing through their pretensions than that provided by socialism. If Dr Upton has a better one, he should present it. - Yours, etc.,
Clanawley Road, Dublin 5.