Letters

16 April 2011

Spectator readers respond to recent articles

Rod and rehab

Sir: Rod Liddle wholly misrepresents the UK Drug Policy Commission in claiming we advocate the social acceptance of heroin use (‘Are we supposed to think of heroin users as just another persecuted minority?’, 2 April).

If he had read our report, he would have seen that we examined public attitudes towards people who are trying to stop using drugs. We found that 44 per cent of people said they would not want to live next door to someone who has been dependent on drugs. But at the same time, the public recognise that it is important for people recovering from dependency to be part of the normal community to help them rebuild their lives.

The enduring nature of this ‘stigma’ is an unnecessary barrier to recovery. It is common for recovering and former drug users to have job and housing offers withdrawn and to be denied services available to others. There is both a practical and a financial argument for tackling this stigma and helping to get drug users rehabilitated and back to work.

Dame Ruth Runciman
Chair, UK Drug Policy Commission
London N1

Cutting points

Sir: Eric Pickles’s comments (‘Playing the heavy’, 2 April) that Manchester was ‘revelling’ in the cuts we are being forced to make because of his government’s bull-in-a-china-shop approach to spending could not be further from the truth. We are certainly not going out of our way to target the most vulnerable. Indeed the reverse is true. And Pickles’s own housing minister, Grant Shapps, has now admitted that the poorest areas of the country have been disproportionately affected by the way in which the government is imposing these senseless cuts. The most telling illustration of this is the Supporting People grant, which helps the most vulnerable stay in their homes, thereby helping to maintain their dignity and save the state a fortune. Manchester, the fourth most deprived council area in the country, has received a 35 per cent cut (£12.6 million less) in our grant. Meanwhile, Windsor and Maidenhead council — one of the least deprived areas in the country — has received a 31 per cent increase.

But, of course, we’re all in this together.

Sir Richard Leese
Leader of Manchester City Council