The following letter from a Mr Phil Lofts was published in the Barnsley Chronicle of 10th August 2007.
Barnsley is like Marmite: you either love it or you hate it; but I find myself loving it and hating it in equal proportions recently.
Kamikaze pigeons zooming in at head height down Market Street to feed on the rubbish left by ‘alfresco diners’; young males afraid to venture out without the obligatory ‘pit-bull’; drunks on cheap booze and the seemingly endless stream of young workless deadbeats patrolling Peel Street from Cooper House (local job Centre) to the town centre pedestal.
The scene is horrible, the prospect grim, the pedestal unfinished for lack of imagination.
But this is my town: I am part of it and what makes it the way it is. I just wish we could find a way to show our ability to take on the new, tackle the challenges of change, solve the problems of everyday life..
Come on Barnsley, grow up. We can be the 21st century market town we aspire to.
We can be like other European towns, confident, comfortable, and clean.
We have an increasing number of visitors and residents from around Europe and the rest of the world.
We should take advantage of the wealth of experience and talent coming to Barnsley, clean up our act and value innovation and imagination. Then we can all say we love Barnsley and mean it.’
Mr Lofts is well known to Barnsley BNP as a professional multiculturalist, and has had many letters published in the Barnsley Chronicle on the same theme. We must all embrace ethnic diversity in Barnsley and move towards a brighter multicultural future. But let’s analyse this particular letter and see what he’s trying to say.
In paragraphs two and three he describe what he hates about Barnsley, and it’s pretty hard hitting. He uses words like ‘deadbeats’ and ‘horrible’ and ‘grim’. The man is obviously not happy about things at all and the reader is invited to share in these sentiments. We desperately need to improve the town according to Mr Lofts and it’s not difficult to imagine the ‘improvements’ that he has in mind.
The first sentence of the fourth paragraph is a bit confusing - ‘But this is my town: I am part of it and what makes it the way it is’. Is he saying he has helped to make the town what it is today? Well every person in the town is a part of the town. We all make it what it is today. All 230,000 of us. And Mr Lofts was a Councillor so perhaps he has made a slightly greater contribution than most other people. All the same it sounds like a rather grandiose statement.
But then he states that we should make a greater effort to tackle the challenges of change and show our ability to take on the new. In other words we should accept his analysis that Barnsley is severely lacking in many critical areas and should make a determined effort to improve. It’s obvious what is meant by this coming from a man like Lofts. We are a boringly white town and must accept and embrace the enrichment of foreigners.
He then tells us we need to grow up. Well!!! I can’t get my breath. Who the hell does he think he is? We’ll do things our way thank you very much and when we need advice from a jumped up little squirt like you we’ll ask for it.
The sixth paragraph says we should try to emulate other European towns. Notice he doesn’t say other English or British towns. Is this because most Barnsley people have already seen what state many other English towns are in, especially in Yorkshire, and prefer our own town which is thankfully still predominantly English.
But the seventh and eighth paragraphs are the killers. All these improvements that need to be made to our town are because we have an increasing number of foreign visitors and residents, and we need to clean up our act to impress them. Well excuse me, but if they have left their own countries to come and live in Barnsley it must be for a reason. And if they don’t like what they find when they get here well they’re quite welcome to turn around and go back to where they come from.
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