Safety on the streets is all that should matter
Pauline Collins, actress, Al Jardine, singer, Valerie Perrine, actress, Derek Redmond, former athlete, Charlie Sheen, actor, Gareth Southgate football manager, Fearne Cotton TV and radio presenter, Chris Fountain, actor, AS gun crime and knife crime make the streets of Huddersfield unsafe, perhaps the West Yorkshire commissioner will claim that policing levels are dictated by budgetary cuts.
The commissioner will no doubt say these are from central government and outside his control, and that he is doing his best.
Achieving minor targets simply not good enough.
Safety on the streets is the only statistic that matters, and I am surprised and saddened that our local MPs are not joining with me in asking that this post and department be abolished and the monies invested in WHERE are the statistics to back up this editorial comment? (End this gun violence, Examiner, Saturday, August 25).
What is the comparison with previous years? Is this a long-term trend or just a blip?
We’ve seen police numbers cut, spending on local communities cut, national politicians using fear of the other, the outsider, the different for their own ends. We’ve seen reasonably paid secure jobs disappear to be replaced by the gig economy, minimum wages and no conditions. Educating people for the future and retraining those sacked isn’t there. Government policy to increase the number of reasonably paid jobs for younger people sacrificed on the altar of austerity. None of the above are an excuse for violence with guns, knives, blunt instruments or fists.
However, if young people have the income from a job there’s a better chance that they will not be drawn into gang activity. We elect politicians on the understanding that they will do the right thing for the country as a whole. What we have at the moment are a government and opposition more interested in internal feuding and settling old scores than sorting out the many problems in the UK.
It’s time they looked outside the Westminster and Whitehall bubbles and saw the reality of everyday life for too many people in this country. I’ve little faith that it will happen.