Since being launched towards the end of last year, Colchester Against the Cuts has organised two public meetings, and a petition we collect signatures for in the town centre each Saturday.

Next Wednesday, when a meeting of the full council sets its annual budget, we will stage a peaceful demonstration outside the town hall from 5.30pm.

But Colchester MP Bob Russell describes such activities as “undemocratic”

(Gazette, February 7).

How does Mr Russell justify such an extraordinary statement?

Before setting the budget next week, we would urge all councillors to consider they are in no way obligated to co-operate with a Government seeking to impose an ideological dogma, in defiance of the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable in our community.

If enough councils refused to set a budget in these circumstances, Mr Russell’s vulnerable Government – along with its dogma – would be dead in the water.

We call on Colchester Council to condemn these attacks on public services, and urge Gazette readers – including Colchester councillors – to join us at next Wednesday’s demonstration.

In response to Mr Russell’s letter (February 2), I have in fact been employed by the same institution he worked for, before he took up politics full-time, for the last two and a half years.

Furthermore, while I have indeed spent six months unemployed in the last ten years (at the beginning of this recession), so desperate was I to get out of it I took up a minimum wage job, despite the fact my qualifications meant I could have demanded a much higher waged job, for a full 12 months.

While I am certainly not going to let the prejudices of a professional politician bother me, those unfortunate enough to be unemployed (especially long term) may feel differently.

Finally, while I have always actively believed in the importance of peaceful protest, an anti-cuts demonstration I attended last summer was the first protest I had attended in about two years. Hardly the record of a “serial protester”.

Andy Abbott
Maidenburgh Street
Colchester