YOUR report “Ministers drop benefits threat to jobless youngsters”, is welcome news (Echo, Feb 29).

This sits well with the abrupt disappearance from the scene of David Cameron favourite Emma Harrison, the A4e welfare to work executive, who pocketed nearly £9m in dividends from taxpayers’ money last year, a sum that would embarrass even the greediest of bankers.

The Government is clearly losing the plot in all directions.

What on earth is to be made of Mr Cameron’s statement, in a particularly swivel-eyed performance at Prime Minister’s Questions, that opposition to the Government’s work experience scheme had come from Trotskyites?

It apparently escaped his notice that the change in policy followed meetings at 10 Downing Street with scores of employers opposed to sanctions.

And how does Mr Cameron view Tesco’s insistence that they will only take part while paying a wage to the participants and guaranteeing them a job at the end? Tesco – those subversive arch-Trots!

Rob Meggs, Hartlepool.