Coalition is ‘out of touch’

Reporter: Lewis Jones
Date online: 10 January 2011

SHADOW Home Secretary Ed Balls has lashed out at the Con-Dem coalition and said that communities in Oldham will be hit hard by planned police cuts.

Taking part in the campaigning frenzy surrounding this week’s by-election, he argued that the current government is “out of touch” with reality.

The high-profile Labour politician braved a bitterly cold Stoneleigh Park in Derker on Friday as he made a second visit to the borough on the campaign trail with candidate Debbie Abrahams.

Meeting Pride of Oldham winner and community champion Angela Cosgrove and her team of volunteer wardens he said cuts to frontline policing would have a big impact.

He said: “This is not a time to be taking PCSO’s off our streets.

“Police are going to hit disproportionately hard by these cuts and it shows that government doesn’t understand.

“It shows how out of touch they are with reality.

“People want to feel safe on the streets.”

A total of 3000 jobs are set to be scrapped from Greater Manchester Police in a bid to save £134 million, representing 20 percent of the workforce.

This will see 1,387 police officers axed by 2015, something which the Shadow Minister said was a bad decision.

He said: “The immediate reaction from the people in Derker is that they know their PCSOs and can trust them.

“With the cut we are going to see in GMP it is going to be very, very difficult to maintain that neighbourhood police presence.

“It will be a hard hit, particularly for communities like this.”

He slammed the coalition just a day after the UK was put on an increased terror alert over fears of plots on transport systems.

He also claimed that David Cameron was “desperate” for people not to vote Tory and said some local Lib Dem supporters were turning their back on their party over broken promises.

However he admitted he thought the by-election would was not simply a two way fight and that the Conservatives still had a chance.

Volunteer Angela Cosgrove, a mother of two teenage boys, said she felt angry at the swinging cuts to education, support for students and police budgets.

She said: “I want to see somebody elected who will do something in my community.

“We don’t want any more broken promises, we don’t want to lose the PCSOs.

“People want a nice place to live, they don’t want hoses being set on fire like we have had recently.

“Losing police support will only increase anti-social behaviour.

“With the cut in EMA and education funding, young people will walk the streets instead of going to college.”