Letter against right-of-centre ideology

Will Hutton is right, both to blame many of our recent problems on "right-of-centre thinking", and to suggest that Britain needs to take "a long, cool look at itself".(Right-of-centre ideology has lost us a war and much more besides,28/12/14) He blames Bush`s war on terror on the right`s "reflex reaction" to punish with yet more viciousness, but isn`t the same principle applied whenever a right-wing government has the opportunity? Doesn`t our coalition`s callous attacks on the least fortunate in our society reflect a form of "punishment" for them requiring welfare and therefore, the rich`s taxes? Aren`t the cuts and pay freezes in the public sector simply revenge for such services being necessary in the first place?

     What Hutton omits to include are the dangers which accrue when right-of-centre ideology leads to politics at the behest of business, when regulations are seen merely as hindrances to profit; workers become exploitative pawns, and when media becomes the servant of  the profit-driven private sector, the truth gets distorted. Your business leader actually stated that workers are "better off" because of "falling unemployment, lower inflation and a higher minimum wage", without mentioning zero-hours contracts, reliance to the tune of an extra £900m on tax credits, and the huge fall in real earnings incurred since 2010. (Challenging party games ahead as Greece threatens to set off another year of crisis,28/12/14)         Similarly, another column warned of the dangers of UK companies being taken over by foreign businesses, without mentioning the cause, Britain`s low corporation tax, eighteen points lower than in the USA, leading to these "tax inversion deals". (Miliband needs a pill for headaches posed by foreign takeovers,28/12/14) The Labour leader wouldn`t have to worry about them, if he had the courage to ditch right-of centre Blairite solutions, and promised to raise corporation tax here to levels comparable with those in the rest of the so-called developed world. A re-think on Britain`s "great power pretensions" would not go amiss either!.