Readers express their dismay at Rachel Reeves’s spring statement, with some lifelong party members feeling no longer able to support it

Many Labour supporters, including myself, have waited a decade and a half for Labour to return to government and bring about a sea change in the governance of the country. We are now beginning to wonder why we bothered. Labour in opposition promised to ensure that the public would see a significant improvement in essential public services and in their economic wellbeing, but there is a fundamental flaw and inherent dishonesty in this government pretending it can achieve this while adopting an economic policy clothed in a self-imposed straitjacket.

Rachel Reeves’s spring statement (Rachel Reeves accused of balancing books on back of UK’s poorest, 26 March) further exacerbates the chasm between her party’s ambitions in opposition and its achievements in government. A year ago, Frances Ryan asked: What’s the point of Starmer’s Labour if it won’t stand up for poor, sick or disabled people? That is just one of the questions that many of us are beginning to ask.
Peter Riddle
Wirksworth, Derbyshire