IT WILL surprise me if Labour wins the General Election in 2015.

Ed Miliband will probably be replaced as Labour leader but he is merely the symptom of that party’s departure from the principles on which it was founded.

He should avoid like the plague whoever advised him to pose with the Sun. Who needs enemies with an advisor like that?

Labour’s defeat in 2010 required a real post mortem over the direction the party was going in but instead they permitted themselves to heed Gordon Brown’s call to immediately elect a new leader.

No one thought to question the way Labour had changed to become similar in outlook and structure with the other main parties.

Napoleon said he learnt more from his defeats than his victories, but the Labour Party appears to be incapable of doing that.

I left the Labour Party when annual conference endorsed the changes in the party’s objectives suggested by Tony Blair.

If, by default, I had not left then, the ineptitude of the present leadership would have brought about my resignation now.

G Bulmer, Billingham.