Clik here to view.
Your report (Public could be given vote in Labour leadership elections, 29 March) leaves it unclear if the proposal follows the Blairite notion that the leader makes policy and the party membership follow it, which emasculated the conference and drove many former members away, or if it pursues the Nordic model of social democratic party policymaking, where Hakan Juholt, the new leader of the Swedish party, recently quoted Olof Palme's words on first being elected in 1969 [my translation]:
"I'm often asked in what ways party policy will change radically under a new leader. The answer is that this is the wrong question. Social democracy is a people's movement which never will be led by a single individual. To those who ask how policy will change we say: study the debates and decisions of conference. Go to regional conferences, the areas where working people live, and to trade unions, and listen to their debates. That's where the answer lies."
Those of us who left the party because of Blair's centralism will be waiting to see if the membership will once again make policy under Miliband's leadership, or if this is another example of bypassing the membership in favour of a vague notion of "supporters" who have no responsibility to any coherent party organisation.
John Veit-Wilson
Newcastle upon Tyne
• Interesting to note last weekend's election results from Germany in the context of Nick Clegg and David Laws's attempts to turn the Liberal Democrats into an economic liberal party. There is an economic liberal party in Germany – it's called the Free Democratic party (FDP). On Sunday in state elections in Baden-Württemberg and in Rhineland-Palatinate they got trounced (Report, 28 March). In the former poll they barely made it into the state parliament with 5.3% of the vote; in the latter they didn't cross the 5% threshold and are no longer represented. One thing that has changed in Germany is that the Greens are now a credible alternative. They governed the country in coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD) from 1998 to 2005. They now lead the Green-SPD coalition in Baden-Württemberg and are coalition partners in six out of 16 state governments. According to a recent opinion poll in Stern magazine, 63% of Germans believe the Greens are "indispensable". Nationally the Greens are now the third party, not the FDP.
It's perfectly plausible to conclude therefore that voters in Germany are rejecting the sort of economic liberalism the FDP stands for and instead backing the progressive, socially liberal, environmentally aware, social democratic policies that the German Greens espouse and that the British Liberal Democrats always used to stand for. Don't be fooled into thinking that voters want more economic liberalism. They don't.
Alexis Rowell
Former Lib Dem councillor, London borough of Camden
