Being born in Bootle I was always instilled with a hearty sense of distrust for government and in general the rich who are seemingly left to run this country.

As I was growing up it was de-facto agreed upon that I would vote labour to keep the tory bastards out of government. As I have grown up, I now see that all politicians are basically unconcerned with the suburban areas surrounding cities, and sefton (which includes Bootle, Litherland, Waterloo, Crosby, Netherton, Maghul, Formby, Southport etc) is as good an example of this as any.

I’m not going to sit on here and basically slag off the scal or ‘chav’ population of this borough – I think that’d be cowardly as well as pointless, but what I will say is our local area that stretches from Bootle to Southport is one of the most deprived in the country – surely?

For me the real crooks are the politicians who have seemingly made it their duty to royally f**k up everything in sight round here. No jobs, no culture, barely anywhere decent to get anything to eat – except for the Subway and McDonalds that litters (pun absolutely intended) Stanley Road.

Widescale re-development underpins the council’s aims, but as you take a stroll through any given area you are quick to find thousands of homes closed down, boarded up and desolate. Great! Kids and adults alike hang around scared of people who are slightly different than them, threatened by people who actually get on the number 52 bus into town to look for work, better prospects, or a ticket way the hell out of here.

I’ve spent quite some time in pubs round here, namely the Red Lion, the Merton, and the god-awful hellhole that was ‘Sullys’ (thank f**k it’s closed, half of it is now a Costa coffee – which is often still treated with suspicion and distrust) and every single one of them is a huge f**king shithole. My local ‘The Netherton’, (which is great for informal and unexpected school reunions) plays ABBA on the jukebox all Friday night, and is now completely teeming with small time coke dealers who hang around in the toilets drinking Stella asking if you’re ‘after anything lad’. One time I was in a taxi on the way home from town and I saw a huge trail of blood outside ‘Sullys’, I jumped out to see where the hell it had originated from, I found a bloke down an alleyway with his head caved in, a bottle of Peroni in his hand, desperately trying to find a lighter or match for his shittily rolled cigarette. He looked at me and asked if I had a light. I gave him 5 cigarettes and my lighter.

The cultural hub of the borough is undoubtedly the Strand. Here you can see 40 year old women who look 70 years old waiting in endless lines at Halifax, just itching for the chance to complain about the length of queues, the number of ‘poles’ who have ‘infested’ Liverpool, and still trying to smoke indoors. Shops numbered 5:1 in favour of ‘knock off boutiques’. The people who populate this barren wasteland of nothingness are some of the most strange, bizarre and downright frightening that England has to offer. Be careful as you zip past it on the bus, do not look any of the feral twats with overcoats on as they will sit next to you, stink the place up of piss, and chat to you about Snooker or Football or something else scousers are supposed to be interested in. There is not a shred of culture here – really, unless you count a GAME which is always full of little twats just playing Fifa12 on the Xbox 360 for free, until they are chased out, to which they often respond ‘c**t’ or something equally eloquent. There used to be a musiczone here, which I loved, and was in all honesty an escape from the totally shit, depressing surroundings – I used to spend hours every Saturday afternoon picking out a few CD’s with my £10 of pocket money. Looking back on it, I honestly think that without a passion for music, I would have long went mad or just sucumbed to the peer pressure and became a toothless fucker arguing about which of my 7 kids are cutest.

Bootle boasts quite a few names though, actor/poet/DJ Craig Charles, snooker player John Parrot, footballers Roy Evans, Steve McManaman, and Jamie Caragher, TV presenter Keith Chegwin, rock star Billy J. Kramer all hail from here. They were all part of a Bootle that was thriving and seething with righteous political anger – and now they’ve moved the f**k away, because it is shit. During the recent ‘England riots’, the city centre (and Toxteth in particular) seemed to just go mental for no reason, well they did it here in Bootle too. Some complete c**t drove a JCB digger into the local post office cash machine and got it stuck. Some of the people round her are that thick they can’t aim a 2 tonne building device to break a piece of metal. I weep.

It makes me sad to think that my family have accepted, and in a way CHOSEN this shithole as the place they want to live, I certainly don’t want to live here. I want to live somewhere good. It really is hell on Earth.
By: Craig

I have mixed feelings on both this topic, the places named and the responses given to the top 10 worst places to live.

To be honest, I actually moved away from the Liverpool area, incidentally, Birkenhead is where I’m from. They call us plastic scousers up there because we have the accent but we dont actually live in the Liverpool district. Its over the river on a spot called the Wirral but still from there less than 10 mins on the train to the city centre. I moved away because Merseyside in general is full of no marks and the very few people there who just want to get on with there daily lives in peace are brought down by these losers or the utterly ruthless backstabbers because pretty much everyone in Liverpool and Birkenhead has a chip on their shoulder and its a very tough environment to live in. Nobody has much sympathy or empathy for anybody else and they seem to take the upmost in pleasure in anyone elses missfortune…and this is coming from a guy who’s dad does that very thing despite the fact that he didnt stick around when I was a child and after I got kicked out by my step dad from my mums home, he could have helped, but he didnt, and he has the cheek to laugh at me now when I struggle in life. And thats the type of people Liverpool people are, mostly.

I, on the other hand didnt fit in. I had general empathy for people who ever had any bad experiences but I was sick of not getting any back so thats why I moved, aswell as the fact that Birkenhead and Liverpool (but moreso Birkenhead) are full of hard faced people (especially the women), gangs of chavs, violence, drugs, theives, alcoholics and teenage pregnancy. Yeah, lovely place right? Ive even had 4 bycycles knicked in 5 years and all were locked up. There has got to be someone or some gang who are going out looking for bikes to steal and they have some kind of tool to break these locks. The last one I had was locked up with a big padlock outside the library while I was looking for jobs and the bastards sliced through the padlock somehow and I came back to a chain on the floor and my padlock shackle in clean pieces. This looked like a proffesional job. Liverpool has skilled thieves, I say that with experience!

2. I did wonder why at least Liverpool didnt show up here in this list, but Birkenhead…not on the list? Jeez man! Are you kidding me? What an utter lack of anything good Birkenhead is…no work, no money, the counsil are ruthless, so many calls for bailiffs, police everywhere you go (and yes that is a bad thing because they give trouble some of the momentum because being Liverpool people themselves, throw their authoritative weight heavily on people which riles more anger on an already hostile society). Birkenhead has a close knit community of people and everybody knows each other but that isnt necasarily a good thing, believe me. Rumours about people circulate and it causes trouble in and around the town. Ive seen it and even been a part of it on occasions and it isnt nice. There is constant fighting on a Fridy and saturday night, not to mention the assaults that constantly take place in the food shops over a girl or someone que jumping. Ive been assualted myself but that was simply because i was a little drunk and they took pleasure out of hitting me while I was impaired.

Finally, although I am glad to put Merseyside behind me, I do actually think the whole country has become a generally negative place to be and for me, it doesnt matter where in this country I am anymore, I am not happy in general because of the leaders who run it. Many people pick out areas of the country and blame the people who live there…well I say blame government. Its not the people who have done this. They are just unfortunate pawns of the bigger picture. The whole country is in a right state. Personally, I’m planning on moving away anyway.

By: Lee G

Situated on the north side of the shitehole that is “The Port” is the dump that sports the north wests hub of teenage miscreants. Extensive 50 year olds with long hair and trackies make it an every day site here. The beautiful locale of The Marquis houses some of the ports finest. Constant 24/7 ambulance service is on hand for those needy folk that have got themselves caught up in the daily drug deals. Heath Lane or Chavvy Chinatown is home to the greatest number of mentally challenged organisms this side of the Danube. All in all it is a crap hole. Come and visit. You will be welcomed with open arms!
By: jackmatt

I had the misfortune of living in Toxteh -actually an area called ‘Canning’ which the city tried to promote as the ‘Georgian Quarter’ due to the 19th century houses. A lot of people who lived in Canning tried to pretend that it wasn’t Toxteth, but it was.
Oh my god, what a shithole. It’s a very high crime area, with way above average burglaries, robberies and vehicle crime. There was way more drug use and prostitution than in other cities i have lived in in the UK.
The locals (black and white) are a bunch of complaining, lazy, brain dead, dirty, twats. I have never known people to be more self obsessed and inward looking. Toxteth is like the archetypal ‘village’ with its inhabitants hating outsiders and change and with none of them having more than about 2 brain cells to rub together.
And don’t get me started on their self pitying-just google the dead baby/chicken fetus story. What a bunch of morons-i really hated living there and i have lived in many cities around the UK, including London, Birmingham, Bristol and Leeds and none of their inhabitants have the self obsessed, self pitying attitude that scousers do. And so many scousers are thieves-you have really got to have your wits about you or you WILL end up a victim of crime, as i was several times.
In Liverpool if you really want to be unpopular, just say ‘job’ . Most scousers are totally resistant to working for a living and many think that they have a right to benefits, even if they, and their families, have never worked a day in their life. Of course they can’t manage on benefits (get to get the money for the fags, booze and plasma TV from somewhere) so they are invariably involved in crime to supplement their benefit ‘income’
Bunch of losers-and i am afraid that i would have to apply the above to nearly all the people in Liverpool, though i do appreciate that some scousers are decent. No wonder so many leave this shit hole of a city-including ALL celebrities.
God i will never return to that place-it gives me nightmares,

Never have I ever came across a town as chavvy, horrible and bitter as St Helens. They do everything in their power to try and be scouse, and fail miserably due to their downright disgraceful accent and their awful dress sense. Dirty Kappa trainers, Gola Trackies, Mckensie, Henleys, Hi-Tech. Name any awful make, I can guarantee I have seen it in St Helens. They absolutely despise us scousers, so they say in their own small, unknown town, but once in Liverpool, they walk round with their heads down scared to say a word. I can honestly say, they are the biggest flappers in the world, and only act hard when in a big group in their own town.

Complete and utter scum of the earth, with the biggest chip on their shoulder about scousers. The place should seriously be nuked.

On the surface, many rants about Liverpool seem simplistic: scallies causing more than their fair share of trouble, a general lack of respect between younger and older generations, the prevalence of drug and alcohol addiction – all of these on the surface seem like a recipe for a terrible place to live: but the problem is much more serious than that, in the sense that this city will grind you down and destroy the person that you are if you are not careful, as anyone who does not conform to the abhorrent ideals of what it means to be a citizen of Liverpool (which I will go into later) and is in contact with the undesirable enforcers of these rules, which happen to be a minority of tracksuit-clad youths of around 25 and under – just like World War One: if you put your head over the parapet, you will be gunned down. Whether it is your self-esteem, your confidence, your enthusiasm for life – you must surrender it to survive.

For a city with such a long and glorious history of wealth, ingenuity and hard work, Liverpool is socially in decline – though there are many shining examples of why Liverpool is considered by some a success – for many unfortunate people, such as myself, Liverpool is like an obstacle course whereby one must continually dodge the scum that litter the street corners and shopping rows of even reputable areas in order to go about ones daily business.

At this point I must say that not all youths are as I describe in Liverpool – quite the opposite in fact – this is a case where around 9/10ths of the people in the city are honest, decent, helpful, friendly and kind, and this applies to both younger and older people in the city who for the most part would tie themselves in knots to help their fellow man – this is focused about the remaining tenth, who see fit to terrorise and ruin, who see no repercussions in their actions and who see difference as a threat. This minority is what you will encounter most often in the city, known locally as “scallies,” they are instantly recognisable by their uniform of branded tracksuits and branded trainers, their propensity to hurl abuse or objects at individuals on a whim and their general inconsideration for the rest of the world; whether it be graffiting, smoking drugs, robbery or assault (or any combination thereof) it is all neatly packed into their repetoire.

The major problem with scallies is “escalation.” This is where any retaliation to their ills leads to ever increasing problems – a large amount of violent crime in Liverpool stems from such escalation, where even simple tiffs on the street can build up to stabbings and shootings with alarming momentum. Communicating with the Police is a problem too – anyone seen to do that (even if it is in their own benefit to do so) is labelled a “grass” and further escalation ensues. The crime detection rate in Merseyside is less than 40%, showing that this damaging behaviour is ingrained in the local culture – law abiding citizens are left in fear of what may happen if they try to protect themselves.

Scallies love to target people who aren’t like them, or to put it another way, people who will not fight back – particularly if they outnumber you, so on the off-chance that they accidentally abuse someone who would plant them in the ground, they always have the “safety in numbers” approach – you will never encounter an individual scally who will flex his proverbial muscles, they will always wait for backup.

I suppose I could ask: “How did it get like this?” When did we get to the point where children and grown adults of all shapes and sizes came off second-best to adolescent punks? The answer is quite complex really – people who shouldn’t be having kids are having them both early and numerous: alcoholic, drug-abusing people seem to attract each other in Liverpool like flies to horse dung and bump their benefits up with a child or two: never mind the kid’s welfare when the local off-license has an offer on. Pregnant women smoking is another fine sight in this fair city, even I was surprised at the amount I have seen this week alone. These fine examples of parenting give birth to God’s little angels and let them roam the streets until all hours – childhood mischief turns into anti-social behaviour or criminal activity easily with no strong parental role model available. Couple this with dismally low performance at schools for such offspring (“why work hard when my dad gets paid to sit on his arse anyway”, or “trying makes my brain hurt so I’ll throw a tantrum instead”) and you are left with a generation of people who are exisitng in a veritable vaccum of knowledge and self-esteem, assuming the lazy parents are too wasted to give their kids a hug once in a while.

This is a sure-fire recipe for young alcoholism, teen pregnancy, dole scroungers and best of all, the scally. The king of his own universe (even if it is only outside a chippy) who will enforce his rule on all unsuspecting passers-by. Who knows only hate, and not love, and by terrorising indescriminately succeeds, by sheer volume, to have adults on the back foot. That, and the law makes them practically invulnerable to punishment – I get assaulted, they get an ASBO or an “electronic tag,” and I get labelled a grass for going to the police; I physically defend myself and it’s jail time for assaulting a minor.

To those amazing parents out there in Liverpool who love their children and each other, who read to them and spend all their time nurturing and caring for them, I thank you: you make all the difference. I hope your generation re-adresses the balance in this once great city. To all the young people who are reading this going “None of this applies to me!” then thank you for taking the time to read what I have had to say, I hope that at least some of this has resonated with you. To any scallies reading this who are saying “This guy’s a faggot and I’m steaming mad!” or whatever you say these days, I hope you can see just what this city thinks of people like you, and know that your time will come to an end one day soon. To those who have been on the recieving end of the abuse and torment, I say this, BE confident, BE enthusiastic, BE AN INDIVIDUAL! Above all, you know in your heart what the best course of action is when you are in contact with these little thugs. HINT – it’s not hitting them over the head with a cricket bat (as they are far too big to conceal in your coat!)

Years and years and years ago – in the 1960s, the local council realised that Liverpool was getting overcrowded with people and subsequently picked a random few acres of bog land and fields to build a new town on….ladies and gentlemen…welcome to Kirkby!

WHERE IS IT?
Four or five miles North East of Liverpool, just off the infamous East Lancs Road.

WHATS THERE?
Crime ridden shit hole areas such as Westvale, Northwood, Tower Hill and Southdene…and the “posh part” Melling.

THE TOWN CENTRE (KNOWN AS THE TOWNIE)
Think of hundreds and hundreds of rough-arse housing estates surrounding a rough arse town centre and your getting close. Kirkby has it all, Knowsley College where platoons of 11year old scallies roam around thinking their hard because they wear rigger boots and have shitty overalls, millions of orange-faced, PJ wearing single mums with fags hanging from their lips whilst little Chantelle and Tyler clutch a cold pasty from Greggs!

In the shopping centre, bone-idle scallies sit on the benches sporting Lacoste tracksuits and the obligatory black Reebok “whats happinin kidda” “is right lad” “innit lad” Doberman and Staffs are an optional extra.
The town centre is blessed with several drinking establishments – notably Wetherspoons where the same `faces` have been drinking everyday from 10am since 1999 when it opened. Same seats every day, no variation – a quick trip the bookies, back for a pint of mild, back the bookies “Pint of John Smiths girl”
Fat-necked gobshites in white t-shirts and black cardigans play the fruit machines intently – only stopping to barge outside to answer there £400 mobile phones, “lad, yeah lad, is right lad, bang on lad, in a bit lad”

4pm is college letting out time – mayhem at the bus station where people trample each other to board buses “der’s a fookin queue here girl” – “ay lad canna ger on with a pram on da bus” “do you go down park brow lad”

Oddly, they say people from Kirkby love the place – famous residents like Margie Clark, Phil Thompson and the like swear by it…..

Funny really, the rest of us hate it.

haha,
no matter what people say, birkenhead is f**ked.
yeahh afterr 13 yearss heree i’d say it was near chav central (liverpool)
sorry guyss.
go to birkenhead park for one, and you get stalked by an 8 year old in a trackie hiding behind trees when you can blatently see him ^.^
&& don’t be scared of the girl walkin down the road goin “oh hiya beckyy. god i aint seen you in ages”  while you try an explain you aint becky and that she’s stoned out of her mind.
not to mention what they like to call devonshire place, when really its just an expensive bit of birkenhead marked with the school of birkenhead high, where you get bullied to death and worked up to be top of the leader board in everything,
that’s when you go to a school like devonshire park pimary, by tranmere rovers, where you find, wow. life doesnt have to be that good/shit (which ever you think looks better)
the local priamry school trains you up to be a vicious chav, with a head teacher from liverpool, who aint ever heard of the 11+ and fails you at life,
but thats just the way it goess.
then you get stuck in wirral willy grabberss, when you think its obv a better name than prenton pram pushers.
aha. that school teaches you to be a right chav,
and wirral is a mixx.
chav chav chav emo chav normal chav emo chav chav chav indie.
yeahh i went theree.
love ma form and the school and that but it’s like chav vs. chav 24/7
yeahh. police called in when jess d says shit on the girls in our form,
starts takin the mick out of us at the dance show rehearsals,
when she’s break dancin to abba.
hahaaaa.
ohhh and dont try walkin round rock ferry in a hurry.
it’s a replica of birkanheadd totally.
dont go to birknehead north, you’re sure to be deadd.
try not to stand outtt, or look exactly the samee “why the f**k are you wearin the same trackie as me?”
then you get caught as the odd one out when you dont have a lighter on you cos they all want a fag.
don’t sit at the back of the bus by all means.
you get done in with chav music blarin outt, but the bus driver is shit scared to say anythin, when they’ve got 3 baseball bats and a crowwbarr.
oh yeah cos they is well ‘ard,
erm.. no.
don’t go down woodside end by the town hall.
you are dead before you know itt.
just try not to walk round birkenhead at night fullstop.
you’ll either get beaten up, shot, stabbed or chucked on a bonfire.
no jokes there guyss.
and when they say, oh yeah birkenhead is getting to be a better place, they mean, there is more trouble and it’s more exciting if you’re a chav runnin’ from the police
yeahh. i know my town well.
when someone says do you wanna buy this, you run before they pull out a knife and threaten you.
and when someone says “you’ve been pickin on my little brother”
you run, don’t look back or say anything, and try and find someone you can get help from.
not ya mate who’s already half way down the road near the bus station getting his day ticket outt!!
and try to avoid the pyramids shopping center.
one step out of line can get you barred for life
learn from experience bub.
so yeahh. tbhhh. dont go to birkenheadd love.
it’s shit,      (yeah i live theree! “/)
hahahahahahaa..
new visitors aint welcome kayy, (they’ll hunt you down for tea, trust me!)
dont go the arno either.
it’s the same.

Drive through the center iof town and you come to this god forsaken place, that is so irish descendant biased, i cant tell you how dragged up this place is, they even had a thing here called the Toxteth Riots were every man and his dog were thinking the police were picking on them, above all else it is chavvy loads of gangs of thugs, saying “Ill do ya ya f**king c**t”, or for those whio are heavily adicted on drugs “dont you f**king start on me lad”, and im like i never startyed on you bellend.

Once , when i worked in the leather goods company i woorked with a woman who lives in toxteth and waht a cheap tart she was, she had about seven differnt fellas, half her kids where Irish, half of them Indian, the others were scousers and the one she had recently didnt know who he could call dad, as the same seven fellas were contesting this, what an existance, and what a loud mouth she had, we had to call our workplace “the cuckoo clock of doom” the amount of times she either insulted someone, sceramed at the boss, or talked about how poor her wages were

i watched a show on tv oncecalled the secret millionaire, and i dont know how people live, no job opportunities, every second of the day somebody either gets shot, gun crime is out of this f**king world its a dangerous hellhole so stay away, families all living in run down two up two downs and like Bootkle down the road everybody seems to think the world owes them a living, they have got a city center a mile up the road with every single bastard shop on the High steet, or in there eyes the shy street as they are too proud to get a job half of them

Everwhere you look, dog shite, piss stinking allleyways, grafitti all over the walls, the pavements are that uneven a spirit level wopuldnt straighten them out, as for the bars there is more atmosphere on the moon than any of these.

If you go over the seaforth flyover, past the docks, down Derby road, and over the canal Bridge you come to this Chavvy shitghole this looks like liverpool back in the 80s does this place, everywhere you look there are so many f**king people just buming around, half of them look like they have been on drugs, and i think the only reason they have opened up a f**king lidl and tesco is to stop people shagging each others mothers or sisters

The strand is an awful hellhole by the day, and i am sure paul kersey agrees with me on this one, the amount of crap shops, endless awful sports shops is utterly amazing beyond belief, i had a drink underneath The Turd building yesterday in Wetherspoons and the lazy bootleite shites nver even bothered asking me for any id which i picked up on, say i would have been underage, any wonder we are deemed as self-pity city by outsiders, i dont think this but i know for a fact it has been said everywhere you look there areciggarete buts, dog shites, litter all over the place  and the smell of smoke and piss knocks you sick, i feel dirt y pass me the dettol.