Croyden, 9 August 2011

Dear Mr Livingstone,

I – A. Disaffected-Youth – write to express my sincere thanks to you for representing my concerns so eloquently on BBC Newsnight last night. I myself was burdened with the task of looting my local JD Sports store in order to give voice to my worries about the cost of education and my employment prospects in the future.

At 10 pm last night I responded to a tweet which I received on my blackberry. At the time I had been reading Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in order to prepare for my GCSEs which I sit next year. I had been endeavouring to recognise the intrinsic merit of the work, since I -along with several hundred other disaffected youth – am gravely concerned at the trend that has developed of handing out A*s with the cornflakes. It is a sad reality that in the world I live in, educational advancement can only be facilitated by robbing trainers, flatscreen televisions and video games from local shops.

I feel that you conveyed extremely convincingly our shame at having to resort to rioting in order to bring across this message. I look back nostalgically to the time under your mayorship when I had bright hopes for my academic and professional future.

It was with great reluctance that I cast several bricks at the Metropolitan police officers who were attempting to restore order to the streets. It was with yet greater dismay that I set a furniture store on fire. As you say, my great concerns, as a young working-class male are holding down a job and supporting a wife and family. Indeed it is for them that I robbed a games consul, mobile phone and digital camera last night. It is time to start planning for the future. After all, I turn 15 next week.

As you say, the cut in youth services is directly related to this violence. Before these austerity measures were imposed upon my friends and me, we used to spend our evenings playing cards at the local community club. Occasionally, we dabbled in scrabble.

I look forward to a return to these times under your governance in 2012.

Yours Lootingly,
A. Disaffected-Youth