Sorry for the delay in responding to Gavin Barwell’s letters in ‘Your Say’ (January 9th and February 6th), it is just that I have been spending a few weeks in The Bahamas with my twelve wives and HUGE HUGE number of children, colleagues and the odious right wing national press with their drip, drip, drip propaganda against those least able to defend themselves, would have you believe people like myself who are unemployed were all living the high life thanks to the benefits system.

Gavin Barwell and his fellow Tories do their best to encourage folk to pick on certain groups: they turn the working class- and everyone else for that matter- against the unemployed, the private sector against the public sector and the able bodied against the disabled when really, the figure of blame ought to be directed towards them and their filthy rich friends mostly at the top of the private sector because they are the ones who have gotten this country into a mess.

In his latest letter Gavin Barwell claims he has a duty to speak up for constituents who tell him that despite working as hard as they can, they are worse off than someone down the road who is not working. The benefit rate is a measly £57.00 per week with a contribution towards housing costs which sometimes you have to wait for over a year to qualify for and even then, depending on your circumstances, it is not always the entire amount. In many instances it falls well short.

Believe me, I’m long-term unemployed and unemployment benefit is peanuts. Yes, there are some people who make the most of their situation by having loads of children so as to claim lots of child benefit and get allocated large council homes, but the vast majority of people on benefits are ordinary people who want to work and if they don’t try hard to find work, it’s probably because experience has told them they’re wasting their time.

Gavin Barwell and his Tory cronies seem to have a pathological hatred for the unemployed. They treat us all as though we are sub humans with no feelings, no aspirations and no vitality. Instead of keep picking on the unemployed, why doesn’t Gavin Barwell pick on groups that I hear people complain about; bankers, chief executives of especially top companies but also the public sector, MPs, premiership footballers, cabinet councillors, London assembly men, and worst of all, lawyers. It wouldn’t be because most of these groups are rich and powerful and can defend themselves against lightweight MPs would it?

According to a district judge I was up in front of recently, £160.00 per hour is the going rate for a solicitor. God only knows how much barristers and QCs get. In one hour £160.00 is pretty much what three people in receipt of bog standard benefit get to live on in a week. These days if you lose a court case, costs that it will render you homeless and bankrupt, regardless of your ability to pay.

I don’t want to keep contributing towards bashing up Gavin Barwell in the local press, but he makes it so easy. I’m thinking of voting communist at the next election.

A Hayward
Addington