Labour let-down

It is beyond comprehension that Labour’s last MP from Scotland, Ian Murray, abstained on 20 July rather than vote against the latest round of Tory welfare cuts, particularly as 67,000 disabled people in Scotland will lose up to £1,500 a year.

The Resolution Foundation says that more than two-thirds of the families affected by the welfare cuts will be in work and that families with two children will lose up to £1,690 a year.

In addition, almost two-thirds of the Tory cuts will be borne by the poorest 30 per cent of households and almost none of the cuts would fall upon the richest 40 per cent of households

Ian Murray’s “green” credentials are also in tatters as he failed to vote on 14 July against George Osborne’s Climate Change Levy cuts to the renewables sector which disproportionately hit Scottish businesses.

During the election campaign Ian Murray made a big thing about his “anti-Trident” stance, but it turns out he’s never voted on that either.

Labour used to fight for social justice and the poorest in society and we don’t elect MPs just to abstain on big issues.

Janice Thompson

Walter Scott Avenue

Edinburgh

Have the Labour Party got a future considering they are now guilty of the sin of omission?

It is a serious claim directed to those Labour MPs who on Monday night in the House of Commons sat on their hands and abstained from voting against the government’s Welfare Bill.

On a night when seven opposition parties came together in opposing the bill, only 20 per cent of Labour MPs defied their party whip and voted against it, clearly demonstrating why Labour are such an ineffective opposition, unable to stand in the place of the needy, the sick and the vulnerable.

Do they have – or for that matter deserve – a future? That may depend on their new UK leader and, interestingly, only one of the four UK Labour leadership candidates defied the party whip and opposed the bill.

That candidate was not the current front runner, Andy Burnham. But Mr Burnham, in a radio interview, tried to come to his own defence and had the audacity to claim he was merely following the party whip, putting party before the welfare of millions.

The Labour Party in the UK have once again pressed the self-destruct button.

Catriona C Clark

Hawthorn Drive

Falkirk

Following the spineless decision of the majority of the Labour Party to vote against the Welfare Bill which will dramatically increase child poverty and cause misery for the most vulnerable in our society, we await with interest to have the rationale explained to us by Labour’s habitual apologists.

Of equal interest would be a short description of what Labour now stand for and what they actually do.

Douglas Turner

Derby Street

Edinburgh