Open Letter To Nick Clegg

An open letter to Nick Clegg.

Dear Deputy Prime Minister, or should we just address you as Nick as this seems to be the casual way your Government prefers things.

I’d like to thank you for your charming Christmas Card that arrived yesterday, I noticed that my name and address where missing from the envelope but perhaps that was a small administrative oversight, just can’t get the staff these days, despite the high unemployment figure.   I thought that it was very caring of you to remember your constituents at this time of the year and how charming that you appear to have signed the card yourself.  Oh wait I’ve just looked at it more closely it’s a printed copy of your signature, obviously you are too busy breaking your promises to be bothered to sign the card yourself.

It’s a charming card designed I see by pupil from a local school, how very sweet of you to run a competition in local schools for children. I wonder when you last visited the school. We don’t see much of you up here.

I wondered if you have explained to the children at the school that when they get to 16 they will probably have to leave school as they won’t have the EMA money to help them stay on to do A levels, or go to College. Have you told them also that there will be very few jobs, virtually no training places for them, and that the best hope for them is to sit at home and wait until they are 18 and can claim benefits?

If the kids are lucky enough to have parents working who can support them when they want to pursue their studies to A level or College , have you explained to them that it’s going to cost them £27 000 to go to University? 

Perhaps you would like to explain to them the hard lessons of politics, before they are old enough to vote and learn that they shouldn’t believe what Liberal Democrat Leaders say when they want to be elected, as they will just turn their back on the people who believed in Nick, agreed with Nic voted for Nick, and then are powerless when Nick dumps his pledges and morals for the sake of a well-paid Government job.

I’m now reading the charming letter enclosed with your card, I thought it might be a chatty note about what and what you the wife and kids have been up to this year.

No fooled me again, it’s an apology, a sop to your electorate, the people you turned your back on when they elected you. You talk about the controversial decisions you have had to make, well that’s one word you could use, and I might be tempted to say cold and uncaring decisions.

You make a claim that the loan to Forgemasters was simply not affordable. Strange then that your Government managed to find the funds to bail out Ireland, but you couldn’t or wouldn’t make the case to help a profitable business in a City where you are an MP or even more insultingly to your electorate that you wouldn’t come to Sheffield to explain yourself.

You talk about the good news for Sheffield, in particular the pupil premium.  Ah yes I remember in your manifesto (or as it turned out, pack of lies, and worthless pledges) you promised a pupil premium of £2.5bn, some experts calculated that it could mean as much as £2000 per pupil depending on how it was distributed. You are indeed correct in stating in your letter that it is worth £2.5bn unfortunately you omitted to mention that next year it will only be £430 per pupil a total of £625m and that it will be equally distributed across the country not targeted to those who really need it.

You mention in your letter that Council Tax will be frozen next year in Sheffield, but again you fail to mention that your Government is cutting support to the Council so that cuts of up to £68m will have to be made, or that if the Council tried to raise Council Tax to keep a reasonable level of services in the City that it would be further penalised by your Government.

Once again you are trying to fool your electorate; it seems you have not yet learned your lesson. You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time. 

I think you have had your chance with Hallam, you have shown yourself not to be trusted and not to be worthy of representing us.  So Mr Clegg you can take the thousands of your Xmas cards that your constituents won’t but putting on display and put them on your bonfire of broken pledges and promises.

Yours in sorrow

Neale Gibson-Abo-Anber