Sir, – Boris Johnson claims Jeremy Corbyn will introduce “Bolivarian socialism” if Labour wins the UK election (“Johnson goes on attack against Corbyn as Tory campaign begins”, World News, November 7th).
Mr Johnson is doubling down on a favourite Tory smear of Mr Corbyn as a potential socialist dictator. For instance, he has already accused the Labour leader of wanting to torment the super-rich like “Stalin persecuted the kulaks”. However, Michael Gove recently branded Mr Corbyn a “terminally weak leader unable to make the decisions needed to take the country forwards”. Either, like the fearsome Soviet generalissimo, the leader of the opposition is an authoritarian “man of steel”, or he’s “weak” and “unelectable”. Which is it?
I hope that British voters will grasp that, for the Tories and right-wing media, left-wing politicians who dare to cross the prevailing neoliberal economic orthodoxy are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. – Yours, etc,
JOE McCARTHY,
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Arbour Hill, Dublin 7.