I find it quite sad that Angela Eagle will go down in history as the contender who came third in a two horse race.

Colin Burke

Manchester

As part of the latest backroom machinations designed to bring down the democratically elected Leader of the Labour Party, we now have Owen Smith replacing Angela Eagle as the replacement candidate. This despite the fact, that the membership of the Party doesn’t want this. In fact a recent poll shows that Jeremy Corbyn has never been more popular with the membership and would win any fair and legitimate leadership contest hands-down.

In this process we seem to have come a long way from democracy, the Party’s historical values, and the basic requirement of what a Labour MP should be for. Labour MPs work for a historically socialist Party. In keeping with this anti-privilege agenda, they are not tin gods, feudal lords and ladies, or even corporate bosses. They have one fundamental job, that is to serve and represent the Labour Party’s members and supporters. These are people who are certainly not doing that job, and who are largely alien to the Party having been parachuted into constituencies on Blairite-only shortlists. The fact that some of them are all too ready to threaten to split the party demonstrates their lack loyalty or Labour credentials.

Gavin Lewis

Manchester

For now, Owen Smith could be the man to resurrect the Labour Party. Look a little deeper though and his similarities with Jeremy Corbyn become apparent.

The Blarites are desperate. They will support the person who has the best chance of inspiring the hard-left party membership to betray Corbyn. Smith is ideal there but whether he can satisfy the Blarites and win elections is a different story. And if the Blarites and the soft-left are to become disillusioned later on down the line by Smith’s leadership, then this may act as a catalyst for further treachery.

Corbyn is unable to win elections because he is unwilling to expand his base. Smith is making the same mistakes. His proposal to raise taxes will not appeal to traditional Tories and much of the Tory membership voted to leave the EU, so the idea of a second EU referendum, that he said is ‘tempting’, is unlikely to be popular.

Lewis Chinchen

Sheffield

Trident

I am very saddened, but not surprised, by the result of yesterday’s vote by the House of Commons to renew Trident. The recently, unelected, Prime Minister claims it would be “irresponsible to scrap Trident”. I dispute that claim; I say that it is irresponsible to renew Trident. We are living in times of austerity, foisted upon us by this government; informed that cuts in services and to our standard of living are essential; yet the cost to renew these weapons of mass destruction is estimated to be billions of pounds. We need to invest in our people, in our NHS, in education, in affordable housing and jobs; not an alleged deterrent, that if it were ever used, would wreak total devastation to humanity and this planet.

Trident is not, and has never been, an effective deterrent. Few would dispute that the main risk to our national security are terrorist threats from Isis. How effective are nuclear weapons at preventing their atrocities?

Let us remind ourselves that even former PM Tony Blair acknowledged that the only reason for maintaining Trident was to give Britain status on the global stage. Let us stop with this machismo posturing and focus on improving life for our communities by investing this apparent surplus of capital into realistic and achievable goals.

Georgina Harrison