Stan Collymore Twitter post tells people in Cannock to 'blame themselves' for town's deterioration

Former footballer Stan Collymore has told people in his hometown of Cannock to "blame yourself for once" for voting for parties he says have left "chunks" of it "feral". The ex-Liverpool and England striker addressed the Staffordshire town - and the reasons he says are behinds its decline - in a hard-hitting post on social media site X, formerly Twitter on Thursday (November 16).

Saying he knows the town "better than anyone", the 52-year-old targets those blaming asylum seekers for societal problems. "You know when Cannock people should have started paying attention? Not when people fleeing war stay in two hotels," he said. "We should have started paying attention when the sons and daughters of generations of coal miners (who in some of my mates' cases were literally starving during the miners strike) continually voted for a party that has left our town in tatters."

Going on to describe how the town has deteriorated, he said: "The town centre is dead. Go up to Park Road and see the line of people waiting for methadone as the town battles a major heroin problem, then look at the "shops" which now is vape/barber/pound shop on a loop, and then tell me with a straight face that Cannock voters aren't responsible for the state of the town, but 200 brown people in two hotels are."

Until 1983, when it was abolished due to boundary changes, the constituency of Cannock was largely represented by Labour MPs. Since then, after becoming part of the Cannock Chase seat, it has only once been represented by a Labour MP, Dr Tony Wright, who was elected during the New Labour landslide of 1997 and served until 2010.

Conservatives Aidan Burley (2010) and Amanda Milling (2015, 2017 and 2019) have been elected in Cannock Chase from then on. And Collymore said the result had been "local standards disappearing due to the chronic lack of investment in infrastructure" amid people "voting for parties contrary to our town's interests".

Returning to the issue of asylum seekers, he said: "And we can't blame "them", because 97.4% of Cannock people are white. But hey, it's the 200 people in hotels' fault. Only a bigot could blame people seeking asylum for the woes of a town which decided decades of Tory government would make their town healthy, happy and productive, but instead has left it a shell of the vibrant town it was many years ago.

"Blame yourself for once. Blame your vote. Blame yourself for giving liars, cheats, corrupt officials your thumbs up nationally. Blame you."

He went on to post screenshots of several high-profile criminal cases in Cannock which were perpetrated by white men and added: "No asylum seekers were involved in any of it."