TORY MP Maria Miller is not only out of touch with her comments about the lack of a working appetite on the Wirral: she is out of order.

Following a tour of Wirral Job Centre's last Friday, the Conservative Minister from the Department for Work and Pensions enlightened the nation with this conclusion of Wirral jobseeker’s on national radio: "I was up in the Wirral on Friday talking to one of our local job centres there, and there isn’t a shortage of jobs... what there can be is a lack of appetite."

Ms Miller, whose Government has presided over cuts that have seen thousands out of work, also blamed high unemployment in the Wirral on a "lack of skills" after she visited the borough.

Like the rest of her party, Maria Miller is out of touch.

For a Minister in the Department of Work and Pensions to be so disconnected from the nation outside of her safe Tory heartland seat, it's scary.

In Birkenhead, unemployment rates are nearly double the national average at 6.6%.

In Wallasey the situation is equally as upsetting, with an unemployment rate of 5.3%.

In the constituencies of Wirral South and Wirral West, long-term youth unemployment rose by 100% last year.

Job seeking conditions are equally as dire for the over-50s: in Wirral South, long-term unemployment in this category was double the national average, and in Birkenhead it was nearly three times at 66.7%.

Miller and the Tories are out of touch. It is not down to a "lack of appetite", "lack of skill" or "fear of work" as Miller suggests.

It is a result of the poor handling of the economy by the Conservative Party, and a neglect of the Northwest.

Jack Dyas, Bebington.