Jim Murphy's intervention (Labour told to accept spending cuts to be credible, 5 January), following similar criticisms by Lords Glasman and Mandelson, presents Ed Miliband with a stark choice: retreat into the failed comfort zone of pro-business Blairism, or carve out a distinctive new approach to economic justice. The latter would include taking David Cameron to task over his failure to demand the full payment of taxes, potentially amounting to £25bn, by firms such as Vodafone and Goldman Sachs. Miliband could then go on the offensive by attacking the Tories' defence of the City, an institution which, through top-slicing, is rapidly reducing the value of private pensions to a pittance. He could also demand the implementation of a Tobin tax.

The vast majority of voters who supported Cameron's anti-European stance are being kept in the dark about the practices of the City of London, and one way for Miliband to regain ground would be to enlighten them as to how the Tories support such a parasitical institution. These are all concrete and realistic policies that would contribute to public debt reduction, maintain the state's ability to pay for vital public services and generate a much-needed discussion about economic justice in this age of austerity.
Dr Ben Selwyn
University of Sussex

• In encouraging Labour to accept cuts, Jim Murphy and others should remember that the existing cuts programme is slowing down deficit reduction and increasing borrowing. Cuts are not an economic objective; the reduction of the deficit is, and that can be achieved by growth. But that is only one objective government should aspire to. If Labour is to make a challenge to the Tory/Lib Dem debt narrative it needs to be asking and answering the one question that David Cameron avoids, and that is: "What society do we want?" The public wants a vision for the future and, when we know what that is, we fix our economy to deliver it.
Barry Kushner and Prof Saville Kushner
Liverpool

• Of course Labour must advocate policies promoting growth that will benefit the whole nation (Tory trap could decide election, 29 December), but it would be wrong to pretend public expenditure doesn't have a very important role to achieve that goal. And of course the deficit must be reduced, but not by deep cuts, which lead to a double-dip. A far better way is a jobs and growth strategy that takes people off the dole and into work, increasing Treasury revenues via income tax, national insurance and VAT.

And on the "tax and spend" canard we should aggressively take on the Tories. How can they justify spending £8bn-£10bn a year keeping a million on the dole when the same sum could create half a million jobs? How can they justify printing £75bn to recapitalise the banks that caused the financial crash and not use any to create jobs for its victims? And how can they justify taxing the poorest households with 20% VAT when in the past two years the 1,000 richest UK people increased their wealth by £137bn, yet have hardly been taxed a penny?

We do need a different capitalism based on radical banking reform, massive manufacturing revival, and an overriding commitment to cut unemployment and inequality. Public expenditure isn't the enemy of these objectives: it's a key part of their delivery.
Michael Meacher MP
Labour, Oldham West and Royton

• The thread which links Lord Glasman (Miliband's former guru says he has 'no strategy', 5 January), Zoe Williams (Now there is an alternative: dare to speak about equality, 5 January) and the responses to Liam Byrne (Letters, 5 January) is that the Labour party still lacks any coherent unifying social democratic principles and values on which to base, and against which to test, its social and economic policies. New Labour believed that electoral success derived from accepting the limited rightwing view of what each person's liberty is, playing down the emphasis it formerly gave to equality between people, and stressing divisive social policies which destroyed any sense of solidarity between people facing economic problems like those of today.

As Miliband's Labour party will never compete electorally with methods the Tories do better, perhaps it should consider how it is that the Nordic countries have managed for decades to run viable and popular social democratic parties on the basis of clear principles and values, where the policies are not handed down by the party leadership as dogma or marketing ploys but where the ordinary members argue out how the principles lead to policies with public resonance and appeal. Miliband doesn't seem to grasp that this isn't like competition between McDonald's and Burger King about who makes the better hamburger – it's about a completely different approach to good nutrition. Tories can't compete on that menu.
John Veit-Wilson
Newcastle upon Tyne

• Your leader on 6 January suggests Labour has somehow ducked the fight in the House of Commons on children's living standards. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, on 30 November I personally moved a motion to the house admonishing the government for its squeeze on households. Labour has maintained a relentless focus on sticking up for the women, children and working parents who are paying the price for this government's economic failings.

As a paper that supported the Liberal Democrats at the last general election, somehow you forgot to mention that on key issues – like the benefits cap – it was left to Labour to move the amendments. Lib Dem bill committee members curiously found themselves with something better to do than turn up to committee and support us. Yet with their help we could make the welfare reform bill a better law. I look forward to your continued coverage of the Lords stages.
Liam Byrne MP
Shadow secretary of state for work and pensions