Flirtation with Tories won't help the poor

Neal Lawson, chairman of Compass, tells us the leaders of the centre-left must escape the "Neverland of market fundamentalism".

Yet a market operates in a real world; and if our leaders were to seek to avoid this fundamental invisible hand then even Peter Pan would wring his hands in disbelief. And whither do we escape? To the idealism of comfort-zone politics, and the dressing up of failed socialism?

 If there is to be an alternative to Thatcherism and New Labour then it is more likely to arise out of a progressive consensus of the centre, not through Mr Lawson's attempt to revive the centre-left.

Mike Allott
Eastleigh, Hampshire