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Listen to the kids’ views of our grasping unjust society
• I WAS not surprised that our youth are finding other ways to entertain themselves (Rocks drive patrols off new estates, August 20.)
This type of behaviour is being repeated across the nation. It is clear that Camden’s housing and crime chief, Councillor James King, is living on another planet, when he dismissed suggestions that a greater investment in youth activities might stem the unrest.
As a youngster I remember watching the original film Oliver Twist. Nothing has changed over the years. We can still find Oliver across this selfish, uncaring, nation. Every year the cost of living goes up and up and those who find themselves living on state benefits pensions or and poverty wages get poorer and poorer, As it is whole families are living in poverty, and if both local and national governments continue to ignore the divisions, and the levels of poverty that they have created within our communities across this nation then they have no right to claim that we are civilised nation or a united kingdom.
May I remind the authorities that at the start of our existence on this planet in the first years of our lives, we are all innocent.
May I also remind Cllr King that we need to work with potential offenders within our communities before their behaviour gets out of control. If that means putting money into our communities so be it.
As it is over the past 30 and more years under Thatcher (Conservative party) and New Labour, the British establishment as a whole’s mentality has been to take, take, take as much money as they can from our welfare state, never mind the poor, to fill their own pockets.
Let’s have no misunderstanding there is a growing concern about the ugly face of the youth gang culture which can be found in most cities across this country, which has been, without doubt, created by the powers that be who over the years have been selling off our welfare state, and selling off our public sporting and leisure facilities to private companies whose only interest is in profits.
As it is we have thousands of kids and their families who cannot afford to pay the high costs of living in this country never mind the costs for sporting and leisure facilities.
Our youth need something to do rather than stand around street corners bored out of their minds, getting into trouble with the authorities.
If that means putting more money into our communities so be it. You just need to listen to our kids. Some are exceptionally angry; many see no hope for their future while others are screaming out about the unfair, unjust, society which we have become.
A number have described Great Britain as being the hellhole of Europe. Cllr King should try living in the real world before he dismisses the needs of our children across this country.
ALAN PATTERSON
Chairman, START
(Somers Town and St Pancras ART)
Chalton Street, NW1
Staff bonuses? Spend it on the young
• WE can only hope that the problem of stone-throwing youths highlighted on estates across the borough will not now become more widespread thanks to the cuts due to be imposed on Maiden Lane Community Centre.
While there can be no excuse for anti-social behaviour, it’s just common sense that leaving young people with nothing to do will result in some going off the rails, ruining their own lives and causing trouble for everyone else.
This should not be a partisan issue, as we all want excellent youth facilities for young people in Camden.
But what sense of priority does it reveal that the council is spending so much on bonuses for elite staff while cutting back on one of the few facilities that has broken down barriers between groups of young people from different areas?
And at a time of rising unemployment, which impacts most severely on young people, Liberal Democrat councillors are being awarded £5,000 extra payments while removing the ability of teenagers in deprived communities to get help with writing their CVs?
PHIL JONES
Patshull Road, NW5
No integrity
• I AM confused! Liberal Democrat politicians are blaming their own council officers for the cuts for the community centre youth services in Maiden Lane estate.
I thought Lib Dems were in charge of the council in Camden. Has the slash and burn politics gone to their heads?
This must be a whopper in own goals for the Lib Dems in Camden! Or is this a sick political game Lib Dems are playing with innocent voters, because a couple of weeks ago they actually had the audacity of collecting signatures for a petition against the closure of face-to-face advice sessions in Kentish Town Citizens Advice Bureau; I signed it thinking they were in opposition and Labour was cutting the service. Well, you can imagine my outrage when I discovered they were the ones starving the CAB out of the funds they need. Lib Dems are playing with the public’s emotions using unethical dirty tactics, giving politics a bad name. Do they have any integrity?
GERRY ABRAHAMS
Peckwater Street, NW5
It’s not the first cut
• THE Liberal Democrat councillors, who control Camden Town Hall, are trying to deny responsibility for the council-imposed cuts to the Maiden Lane youth centre.
In fact they’ve got form on this. They cut funding to our local youth centre, the Haven, last year. I’m not sure what’s worse, a deliberate plan to cut youth centres or a series of blunders by councillors who don’t know what’s happening on their watch.
TOM NEUMARK
Gloucester Crescent, NW1
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