Dear Chief Secretary to the Treasury,
I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left.
Signed, Liam Byrne

(Outgoing Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury. May 2010)
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Saturday 10 April 2010

Peterborough and a letter to Mr Brown (update)

Two councillors (link changed overnight to here and here  article rewritten too) wrote a letter to Mr Brown on 18th January. They received no reply. They sent the letter twice more, and have still not received a reply.

Copies of the letter were sent to Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg. Mr Cameron responded immediately, passing the matter to Damian Green who has not yet responded. Mr Clegg has yet to respond. Shame on you both, shame on you.

Mr Brown's spokesman says,
'We are not currently aware of this correspondence but of course Gordon will answer any questions that are asked of him.'
Err no!

We all know Mr Brown doesn't ever answer any question, although he might respond to a question by parroting whatever it is he's been told to say, and reeling off loads of statistics, whether they're relevant or not. He's got a thing about numbers and lists you see, it's the way he is.

The letter from the Peterborough Councillors, Mr Keith Sharp and Mr Charles Swift was a plea for help.

Amongst the points they raised were the following :-
... local primary school, Fulbridge, which has a roll of 675 pupils, 27 different languages are spoken with only 200 of the pupils having English as a first language.
If that wasn't enough to worry a Prime Minster whose party constantly bleats about "Education" there's also this :-
'The first-year reception class has 90 pupils, of which only 17 are white British.
Crime and policing :
'We had four police houses in the ward years ago. Everyone knew and respected the local constable.

'Now we have muggings, robberies, burglaries and neighbour disputes. We have prostitutes, drug dealers and an ever-increasing number of people who drive without road tax or insurance.'
Jobs:
Some 16,000 migrants - many looking for farming work - have moved to the Peterborough area since 2004. Immigrant communities account for 64 per cent of the population growth.
Medical care:
Registration at the local doctors' surgery has rocketed with more than 90 per cent of the new arrivals being from the EU.
And a reminder of what the Prime Minister said when he received the first letter in January? Oops! It must have got lost in the post, and the second, and the third because let's remember what Mr Brown's spokesman said,
'We are not currently aware of this correspondence but of course Gordon will answer any questions that are asked of him.'
Don't hold your breath for too long people of Peterborough, Mr Brown has just accepted his nomination as an electoral candidate for Kircaldy.

Do you expect the Prime Minister to think about you, and your problems - in distant Peterborough - even for a moment? The man had a whole country to run, he couldn't waste his time getting bogged down with trivial local issues, and he clearly couldn't let anybody else get involved either, they must have been far too busy polishing things.

And now Mr Brown's going to be spending a happy few days in Kirkaldy, with his chums, before he gets back on the campaign trail - where he'll meet lots and lots of people who are truly happy with the way his party have run the country for the past 13 years.

They won't let him near a sniff of dissent or disharmony, so he won't be coming anywhere near Cambridgeshire.

Let's wait and see what the other two do, and say, about it.

Oh, and in the meantime, there must be pots and pots of spare money lying around in Northumberland because they're spending £2.5million on a recumbent green lady. I'll be Mr Brown's kicking himself, he could have used that money for something sensible, like filling potholes!

P.S. (Sat a.m.)
The original article appears to have been rewritten here
Second article explains the immigrant situation in Peterborough.
Both articles carry a copy of the letter.

Here it is.

....

4 comments:

Witterings from Witney said...

Odd is it not, Mrs. R that the letter to which you link is no longer available?

Mrs Rigby said...

Yes, it has, but there are now two articles. Have edited my blog.

Anonymous said...

From the letter: "We are in the same position now as we were after the Second World War."

The Daily Mail article states that "According to EU rules, foreigners can live in other member countries for up to three months, but can only remain if they are financially independent, working or registered as students."

Is that right?
And if it is, it is not being enforced because......?

If it is, then I would have thought that housing and benefits should be stopped after 3 months.
No?

Mrs Rigby said...

"it is not being enforced because......?"

Probably because we weren't meant to notice there were rules.