THE parents of the children killed and injured in Manchester are probably too devastated, numbed, grief stricken or bewildered to respond to the likes of Malcolm Pittock, Letters, May 29 "What about Western terrorism?" I will try to do it for them.

After a few standard desultory words about ‘how awful’ etc the outrage was, he is at pains to blame ‘the West’ for the murders, worse, he even tries to deflect any criticism from the deranged individual who set off the bomb.

Like me, I suspect that Mr Pittock is nearing the end of his life. It is a time for older people to cherish and love children, not to use their mass murders as some kind of justification.

Regrettably, Jeremy Corbyn was even quicker off the blocks in deflecting blame and justifying the slaughter. The speech he gave in which he also blames ‘the West’ for the murders must have been written within minutes of news of the bomb filtering out.

Look at who is being attacked. People out doing their Christmas shopping ploughed down by lorries, young people in France attending a concert or going to football, people having a meal in a restaurant, or children in Manchester going to their first concert, homosexuals thrown from high buildings, ‘none believers’ beheaded.

It is our way of life and freedoms that terrorists want to prevent, and as long as there are people like Pittock and Corbyn who can be relied on to deflect the blame on to ‘the West’ it will continue.

The only words we need to hear nationally and locally from older people are condemnation, disgust, abhorrence, and sympathy.

Ron Shambley

Clough Avenue

Westhoughton