Wirral letters: February 29

Feb 29 2012 Birkenhead News

Despicable behaviour

ON SUNDAY night, around 11pm, my daughter was abused verbally by four yobs dressed in smart suits. I hesitate to describe them as young men because that makes them sound civilised and decent.

My daughter, standing alone at a taxi rank in central Liscard, near Wallasey, felt intimidated by their behaviour and was reduced to tears by their lewd and abusive comments.

Those disgusting miscreants are somebody’s sons, brothers, husbands, even.

How would their families feel if they knew that their son, brother or husband had thought it was acceptable to terrorise anyone, let alone a young woman, vulnerable at night.

I feel ashamed for those families who have brought up such vile individuals who claimed that they were “on leave” from the Army.

My daughter’s boyfriend is in the Army and he is horrified that the public might believe that these yobs are representative of our armed forces.

Maybe a policeman patrolling Liscard centre regularly might have made a difference. Who knows?

Although, it might have made my daughter feel safer knowing that the police were close at hand.

Thank-you Mr Cameron for making the ‘bobby on the beat’ a pipe dream.

Seeing my daughter so shaken filled me with despair and I wanted to alert people that there are four ‘young men’ with their families today who behaved despicably to a young woman this week.

NAME and address supplied

via www.wirralnews.co.uk

Wirral First

WIRRAL FIRST, a new political movement based in Wirral, will contest a number of seats in the forthcoming council elections in May.

A number of ex-councillors, former parliamentary candidates and others will stand as independent candidates under the Wirral First manifesto, which is as follows.

A directly-elected executive Mayor for Wirral

Abolition of the cabinet. Cabinet responsibilities to be taken by the Mayor.

Reduction of councillor numbers from 66 to 22

Change from a “can do” to a “will enable” council. Every service will be examined to see whether it can be provided by somebody other than the council.

An immediate 3% cut in council tax in accordance with taxpayer wishes in the recent consultation.

Councillors supported by Wirral First promise that they will not draw any expenses or vote for any council tax increase during their term of office.

Further information can be obtained by emailing info@wirralfirst.org and from the website at www.wirralfirst.org

KEN FERGUSON

Upton

Jobs fears

ESTHER McVey, MP for West Wirral, called a public meeting to do with unemployment on Merseyside on September 16 in Hoylake.

A selection of people were on the panel including a rep from Wirral Council.

It was a lively meeting, with people making clear their frustrations at their teenage sons and daughters being unable to find any work and certainly no signs of improvement for jobs on Merseyside as a whole.

Someone said that Merseyside has four times the national unemployment rate, with youth unemployment now rocketing.

I find it unbelievable that a government minister was on the Wirral recently inferring that most unemployed here are basically lazy and don't want to work alongside saying there are enough jobs for all on the Wirral as no less than distasteful and an ignorant thing to infer.

A Unison representative was also at the meeting, Andrew McGregor, who works for the careers advisory service (Connexions) and made clear his, and all his members’ annoyance, at the ongoing closures of most of the careers advisory offices on the Merseyside (Connexions), which will effectively put most of the employees jobs on the line, let alone taking away critical support and guidance for unemployed young people.

The WBC representative spoke about certain projects that the council are involved with to try to create jobs, alongside Esther McVey, and other panel members spoke about apprenticeship schemes, where the government are paying employers to take on apprentices and allowing them to pay wages nearly three times lower than the national minimum wage at £2.60 per hour, a member of the public shouted out “I thought we had banned slavery.”

Esther McVey and her government need to realise the real impact all their cuts are having on our society.

CHARLES BARNES

West Kirby