IT would appear that there wouldn’t be enough popcorn available in Britain as the people sit down to watch the spectacle of Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party.

Then in wades Rob Merrick, The Northern Echo’s independent voice in Westminster (Echo, July 23), with an opening salvo mentioning the part of Tony Blair and...wait for it, Harold Wilson as past leaders.

Surely, this was some sort of mindless joke? Usually, socialist governments eventually run out of other people’s money, leading to wage and price freezes, tax increases, eventual cuts in public expenditure...and in Harold Wilson’s case “in place of strife”.

Mr Wilson and his boot-boy, Lord Robens, oversaw the mass destruction of the British coalfields. Some 400 pits were closed and 300,00 mining jobs lost. The Durham collieries were essentially slashed to a rump in the east of the county.

Bizarrely, there wasn’t a squeak of protest from the usual suspects. The leftist union men stood on the sidelines and hardly let out a whimper. They were the epitome of hypocrisy.

Jeremy Corbyn is only outdone in his wholly inaccurate view of the world by never-had-a-job Guardian columnist and perennial sixth-form politics debater Owen Jones and a cabal of Hear All Sides contributors who would be better suited to life in North Korea or the old Soviet Union.

Jim Tague, Bishop Auckland

JEREMY CORBYN has electrified the Labour leadership contest.

I don’t think he’s the right choice as Labour leader but he is raising important issues and meaning the candidates must strive harder to convince that they have ability communicate and lead.

The winner of the contest will have had a taste for the challenge ahead. They will have faced up to arguments, had their personality tested and been able to build support across the Labour movement.

The different people saying one candidate or another would be a disaster are missing the point – the Labour leader needs to able to win over all voters and the first group of voters they need to persuade are those in the Labour Party.

The ballot papers will be sent to Labour Party members and supporters in mid-August.

The next few weeks will see if Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall or Jeremy Corbyn have the mettle to provide tough opposition and build an alliance with voters to defeat whoever is the Tory successor to David Cameron.

One of the four candidates will win and that will be because they have stood out and shone most brightly.

They will be the right choice, that’s how elections and democracy work.

Richard Bulmer, Sheffield