Guardian letter on Labour`s problems

Your editorial on the leadership of the Labour party rightly states that Miliband needs "to be more proactive and more focused about pushing his key policies", but ignores the possibility that these "key policies" may be causing the problem in the first place.(The message from the polls is that Labour needs to raise its game, not change its leader,11/11/14) Your statement that there are "no easy fixes for centre-left parties in modern politics" overlooks an obvious option, which Miliband would be well advised to consider, to move further from the centre. When he has done this in the past, as with the energy price freeze pledge, his support in the polls has increased. On the other hand, having policies which merely tinker, and change little, there can be neither vision nor transformation, and the UK after five years of a Miliband government, would be pretty similar to what it is now, something the electorate clearly understands.

    Joining the other two main party leaders queueing up to pay homage to the CBI, similar to his actions in Scotland in referendum week, will only enhance the view that there is little to choose between them. An £8 an hour minimum wage by 2020 suggests exactly the same. "Left"-leaning policies, like ending the privatisation and making the City institutions pay their fair share at last, properly regulating rented property so that tenants do not pay inflated rents to profiteering Rachman-like landlords, and allowing the gradual re-nationalisation of railways to proceed when franchises become available, would at least indicate voters were not totally being "taken for granted".

    The adoption of transformational policies which aim to re-shape society, so that it works for the common good, and not just for the financial sector and the 1%, would actually show Labour, not before time, was "raising its game".