Stop making excuses for violent ‘youngsters’

I HAVE just read the letter from a Gill Irwin (“We shouldn’t blame the fun-seeking youngsters”, June 29). Are you serious?

It might interest this writer to know that not all the thugs, at Ogmore-by-sea in particular, could have been classed as “young”. There were plenty of adults in this collective who were there for one reason only and that reason was violence. These idiots will go anywhere where they can involve themselves in a violent situation.

The writer also says “These young people have been in ‘lockdown’ for so long, not going to school, college, university and work, along with missing out on their usual social activities’’ ... I can inform the writer that on my travels around Cardiff, I have encountered, and still do, dozens of these hard-done-by young people going about their “social activities” with no regard whatever for social distancing or any other of the restrictions that most of us are enduring.

Is the writer telling us that these young people are so flakey that they can be allowed to disrupt communities by urinating anywhere, fighting, leaving rubbish all over the place and assaulting the police?

These people are the next generation that will help determine the future of our country and I do not hold out much hope if they continue to “do their thing” unchecked. Roger Lee

Cardiff

Every council needs a statue taskforce

RECENT events around the Black Lives Matter campaign have highlighted the widespread lack of comprehension of English history during the period of colonial and industrial expansion. The period, particularly the 18th and 19th centuries, generated a huge amount of self-aggrandising statuary which is little more than urban visual clutter and is certainly not educational in such a generalised backdrop. Clearly there should be an evaluation of these items, but this will be a long drawn-out process involving historians, local communities and others.

Surely, in the interim, it would be useful, cost-free and of immediate effect, if local authorities refused any proposals for new busts or statues of individuals until at least 60 (or even 100) years after such persons’ death.

They should only be considered at that point if the groups desiring the erection of such monuments agree to pay all cost of production, installation and ongoing maintenance.

Why should taxpayers have to maintain statues of dubious historical, ethical or aesthetic value?

Sporting statues should be located at sporting venues and looked after by the associated clubs. Councils are at liberty to accept representations of important events or trades in their community’s history and this has resulted in some good art.

Great architects, engineers, scientists or writers do not need statues, for their work is their memorial. Performing artists leave us films and recordings and are often commemorated by scholarships or prizes for young performers. The donation of Gladstone’s library for public use is also of general benefit, whatever his personal shortcomings.

It is ironic that so many politicians, generals and industrialists have such solid memorials despite the flimsy nature of their contribution to the common weal.

The fabric can be recycled, but what can be done about the damage many of these people inflicted on others, except by all of us trying as a society to undo their legacy of exploitation of ordinary workers and subjugation of other nations and races.

Imperialism and capitalism are inextricably intertwined and both depend on an amoral pursuit of personal wealth and power.

We do not need Johnson’s stalling tactic of a Commission. We need every local authority to create a “job and finish” taskforce with a fixed timescale to schedule those statues suitable for retention in the context of local history and community sensibilities.

It would also be a good idea if council candidates gave an undertaking not to holiday in countries where the tourist trade fuels modern slavery and prostitution, thus showing that they have an understanding about slavery both historic and current.

D Thomas

Brynmill, Abertawe

Dumping recycling abroad is a crime

NOW that it has finally been exposed – that British authorities had been urging citizens to recycle plastic in the honourable cause of caring for the planet, and now we discover that some public servants have authorised the waste of vast sums of taxpayers’ money to dump it in Turkey – these people must go on trial for international crimes.

The simplest charge is malfeasance, the corrupt use of public funds, but those businessmen such as shipping companies must also be investigated.

If any person, in public office or private commerce, chooses to sign a contract, there must be legal consequence for such decisions. The idea that any of these signatories should hide behind “I blame the Turks” should be totally unacceptable to the jury.

Quite apart from squandering public money to doubtful recipients, these actions, which were kept quiet, were international crimes, condemned by every nation, and are also a wholesale fabrication of lies, told to every British child.

Only Conservative voters are so stupid that they are unable to understand the fantastic advantages of an economy which manufactures brand-new products from recycled resources, but even Tory voters cannot approve of secret deals to transfer “rubbish” around the world.

Britain should wake up to its own criminality.

CN Westerman

Brynna

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These idiots will go anywhere where they can involve themselves in a violent situation Roger Lee Cardiff